In “Lion Down” by Stuart Gibbs, a young man, Teddy is asked
to solve the mystery of who or what killed a little bichon frise dog. The dog’s
owner thinks it was a local mountain lion, but Teddy and a local activist along
with a Fish and Wildlife employee aren’t convinced the lion did it. Too many
things don’t make sense if it was the lion.
As he and his friend, Summer look into what happened, the
owner of a theme park, FunJungle who is also Summer’s father asks them to try
and figure out who’s poisoning the giraffes, which can be fed by the public.
It’s only happening on Mondays, so whoever’s making them sick must be feeding
them on Sunday.
While trying to solve both mysteries, they also have to try
and protect the lion from bounty hunters and poachers as the dog’s owner has
offered a large reward to anyone who kills it. The solutions to both mysteries
turn out to be a surprise. Not because new characters were introduced out of
the blue, but rather because you wouldn’t suspect the characters involved.
This book is written for middle school age children, but I
found it to be an enjoyable read as an adult. If you like mysteries, this a
good one.
“Tiffany Blues” by is a historical mystery set in 1924 New
York. Jenny Bell is a young artist who receives an invitation to Louis Comfort
Tiffany’s prestigious artist colony. She’ll get to spend six weeks focusing on
her art at Mr. Tiffany’s mansion. At the end of the six weeks, there’s a
competition among the artists with the best one being awarded a life changing
prize. Trouble arises when her past seems to have followed her there, despite changing
her last name.
While this book claims to be a mystery, it was obvious to me
fairly early in the six week time period who the tormentor was and why they
were doing what they did. They believed they deserved the prize more than
anyone else there and thought that Jenny was the strongest competitor. The only
real question I had was how Jenny’s tormentor knew about her past, but even
then I had a fairly good idea and it turns out I was right.
It was an okay read, but I won’t got out of my way to read
any more books by this author.
“The Hidden Corpse by Debra Sennefelder is a cozy mystery in
which former reality TV star turned food blogger, Hope Early’s neighbor dies in
a house fire. At first, people think the neighbor fell asleep while cooking,
thereby setting her own house on fire. Then a second body is found in the basement
of the house. Now it looks like premeditated murder.
I wish I could say that there were enough clues for the
reader to solve the mystery before the big reveal, but there weren’t. Turns out
that to know who did it, you had to know more about the character than the
author showed before the main character, Hope, figured out who did it. There’s
a fine line between revealing too much and not revealing enough. It seems this
author errs on the side of caution in not revealing enough.
Of all the books I’ve read recently “Aunt Dimity and the
Widow’s Curse” by Nancy Atherton was my favorite. Aunt Dimity is a ghost who “talks”
to Lori Shepherd by writing in a blue leather bound journal when Lori opens it
and calls her name. Ordinarily, I don’t read ghost stories, but I stumbled upon
one of these a few years ago and enjoyed it so much that when I found this one,
I couldn’t resist. This duo solve murders together.
Lori is a wife and mother of three children who lives in the
English countryside, in a little town called Finch. In this book, Lori is at a
quilting bee helping to finish a quilt, when its maker, Mrs. Craven, a widow
who moved to Finch after her last husband died, tells her that she murdered her
first husband because he was a verbally abusive drunk. The widow claims she pushed
him down the stairs, then buried him under the rose bushes in the backyard
garden.
Lori is so taken aback, that she’s not sure what to think or
do at first. Her husband, bill is an attorney, so if she tells him, he has to
report it as an officer of the court. In the end, she decides to travel to the
nearby town of Old Cowerton to investigate further. Her friend, Bree Pym comes
along to help. Their investigation raises more questions than it answers at
first. Eventually they do learn the truth and it’s the most unique ending to a
murder mystery I’ve ever read.
As you can tell from the books I reviewed just now,
mysteries are a favorite. I do have other books to read that aren’t mysteries
and will be writing about those as I read them. In the meantime, I hope you
enjoyed what I wrote.
I’d love to know if you have favorite books or authors. I’m
always on the lookout for good books to read. Happy Reading!
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