Read and Buried by Erika Chase

Blurb: Hosting an award-winning novelist is quite a Christmas coup for the Ashton Corners Mystery Readers and Cheese Straw Society. But when he’s murdered in Lizzie Turner’s house, she’s got a holiday homicide on her hands …

For their very first guest author event, most of the book club members can’t wait to pull out all the stops in Southern hospitality. But for Lizzie, Derek Alton is nothing but trouble—from his massive ego to his smarmy moves. When he’s found murdered in her living room, it seems someone decided that this womanizing writer would be better off dead than read.

After suspicion falls on Lizzie’s friend, she and her fellow book club members discover that Derek wasn’t who he pretended to be. Cracking this case means going up against Lizzie’s boyfriend, police chief Mark Dreyfus, and unearthing a novel’s worth of nasty secrets. And as they get closer to uncovering Derek’s scandalous final manuscript, someone hiding in plain sight is out to write finis to Lizzie’s sleuthing for good…

My Review: I enjoyed the first book in this series, but I really loved this one. The true friendship and closeness of the book club members shone through as this book is set during the Christmas season. I liked all the little tidbits about Lizzie's daily life, from her interesting job to her choir/pageant rehearsals to quiet time spent with her two beautiful Siamese cats Edam and Brie. Her special needs mother is a delightful addition to the cast of characters as well.

The murder victim, author Derek Alton, is an extremely dislikeable character, who finds himself shot through Lizzie's front window after stopping by to "apologize" for his disgraceful behavior at dinner the night before and to try to pry information about the book club members from her. She soon learns he had ties to many of the ladies of Ashton Corners, and it was a real whodunit as to which one of them pulled the trigger. The answer I found to be quite surprising.

I'm really looking forward to the next book in this series and getting to spend more time with the Ashton Corners Mystery Readers and Cheese Straw Society.

 

FTC Full Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher with the request for a review.

 

Buy from Amazon: