Death by Smoothie by Laura Levine
Jaine Austen is hired as script doctor for a play based on the sitcom I Married a Zombie. It pays well, but the script is a total nightmare and then the obnoxious actress hired to play the zombie is poisoned by one of her awful green smoothies. Everyone had access to her drink and almost everyone seems to have had a motive for her murder. There's also a delightful subplot involving Jaine's father's plans to tap dance in a talent show with an iguana on his head.
I've only read a handful of the titles in this series and I'm sure my enjoyment of this book would've been increased if I'd read an earlier title where Jaine was involved in the murder of Cryptessa Muldoon, the star of the original sitcom. But I still thoroughly enjoyed it and I'll be tracking down Death of a Neighborhood Witch just as soon as I get the chance.
The Family at No. 12 by Anita Waller
A woman opens her door to a stranger. He winds up dead at the bottom of the stairs. Later she finds herself pregnant. The first part of this book was compelling, if sometimes hard to read because of the subject matter. I was horrified by the circumstances, but wanted to know what was going to happen next. Then it changed and I completely lost interest. The style and tone were completely different. The element of horrific suspense was gone. I struggled to make it through the last two thirds of the book. I've read plenty of thrillers where the plot abruptly switched to another character, or another point in the timeline. This wasn't that -- it was like a completely different author had taken over and decided to write a different book.
Shadow Sister by Lindsay Marcott
Ava has always questioned her mother's death. The doctors attributed it to a rare disease, but she remains convinced that it was something else. Maybe someone poisoned her mother there in the halls of the family mansion. Seventeen years have passed and she'd ready to find some answers. There are a lot of different characters and a lot of different motives, both in the past and present. Towards the end, my concern for the characters was making me actually uncomfortable. It's creepy and atmospheric and part of the Kindle Unlimited program.
The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian
Cassandra Bowden wakes up in a luxurious Dubai hotel room, in bed next to a dead man. It's not the first time she's been blackout drunk, not by a long shot, but this is the first time the consequences have been worse than just embarassing. Terrified of what might have happened, what the consequences might be, she slips out of the room and rushes to make her next flight, lying to her fellow flight attendants about where she was the night before, then lying to the investigating officers. This one has been in my to-be-read pile for years, since before the book came out, let alone the television series. It wound up being more of a political thriller than I expected, but watching Cassandra try to end her own self destructive streak made for an intriguing read.
Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links.
