I’ve been super busy lately, which I hate to say. It just sounds like some self aggrandizing defense bs. But I say it now to explain why when I was at the library with the kiddo and had exactly 12 minutes, he got 11 minutes to get books and movies and I got 45 seconds to grab every cozy mystery on the popular reads shelf. LOL.
Hearse and Gardens by Kathleen Bridge is the second book in the Hamptons Home and Garden Mystery series. I haven’t read the first. I did not find that a problem.
It was amusing in a calm sort of way. I found myself neither excited nor bored. Just contently reading a long. The main character is interesting, partly because her life is very removed from mine and I love a window into a world I don’t know.
Meg and her best friend Elle stumble across a dead body while clearing out an old bungalow of the pieces they can rehab for their businesses. Hence the mystery begins. But the murder is old and that sapped some of the adrenalin from the mystery in my opinion. It’s also a mystery in the style of Christie, in that, you get small glimpses and bits of clues but Bridge holds back critical facts so Meg can do a big reveal at the end to all the players.
℘℘℘ 1/2 – I give it 3.5 pages. It was good. I enjoyed it. I would probably read another one in the series if it came across my path but I wouldn’t go looking for it.
T.A. Henry 