Reviewer: Connie Payne
Title: Christietown - 4th in the Cece Caruso Mystery series
Author: Susan Kandel
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0061452173
Release Date: June 2007
Genre/Sub-genre: ChickLit/Romance Mystery
Year/Setting: Present day - CA
Overall Rating: 4.5
Sexual Content Rating: None (Implied)
Language (Profanity/Slang) Content Rating: Mild
Violent Content Rating: Minimal/Moderate
Susan's Website:
www.susankandel.com
Cece Caruso is a biographer of dead mystery writers, lover of vintage clothing, and sometimes amateur sleuth. At this point, though, she really has no time to be involved with anything other than the opening festivities for Christietown (a themed housing development), planning her daughter’s baby shower, psyching herself up for a visit from her ex, ick!, planning her own wedding, oh, and doing the final rewrites on her bio of Agatha Christie.
However when dance instructor and friend, Liz Berman is found dead the day of the festivities, the day she was to play the part of Agatha Christie in Cece’s interactive murder mystery, Cece can’t help herself. Something’s not right. Who would want Liz dead? When she came out to Christietown on occasion to "get into the part" did she overhear something she shouldn’t have? After all, Cece’s discovered shady developer, Dov Pick, has something to hide.
When another victim is found the pieces really don’t fit, yet they all point in one direction. Is it the right direction and are things as they seem? And how does Agatha’s eleven day disappearance, which Cece’s researching and writing about, mirror the mystery she finds herself entangled in?
Cece’s hot on the trail(s) of every clue and is determined to have every question answered and both murders solved.
I must admit, at first I had a hard time following the story. It seemed as if it rambled a bit. But it didn’t take long for me to catch on to Cece’s thought process or see that the bio she was writing was instrumental to the mystery. From then on the story moved at a fast pace, sweeping me right along with it.
There’s a bit of amusing and wacky chemistry between Cece and her family and friends yet it doesn’t overshadow the mystery or Cece’s sleuthing. And with the clues subtly placed in Christietown, Susan Kandel gives the reader hours of entertaining and intriguing reading.
Mixing her imagination with Cece’s, blending true to life mystery writers lives with her fictional mystery, and creating the twists and turns makes this series unique and Kandel smart.
Connie
Question or comment regarding the review or the book? Click here and let Connie know.
Top
Reviews
Featured Reviews
Archived Reviews