4*’s
Calling all cosy mystery lovers. Damon Lassard is the male equivalent of Jessica Fletcher in Murder She Wrote. A loveable and excitable 31 year old whose volunteering activities in the local community gives him plenty of time to indulge in his love of mysteries. He has history of helping the police previously but he isn’t universally liked and in this novel he is supposed to be keeping his distance from the official investigation.
Jeremiah Milk hasn’t had the easiest of lives. Born with a congenital deformity his time at school was beset by teasing, staring and bullying until he withdrew into his shell. As an adult he became a park ranger at Tripping Halls State Park. Despite his fears that his deformities would mean that romance wouldn’t feature in his life he marries Kathryn and they have a son so when both die separately on one night Jeremiah is devastated.
What follows is a cosy mystery with a sprinkling of puns (including the one in the title) and some lively characters. Damon Lassard is a likeable and enthusiastic character who is able provide the police with the information they need to solve the crime. All the park rangers are under suspicion although none of them have anything bad to say about Jeremiah. Damon has to dig hard and follow trails to get to the motive. I enjoyed this story, it is about 240 pages long which makes it great for a quick, easy and entertaining read. Even better it is tightly plotted with a motive which is compelling and some great original twists for this mystery.
I first learned about this book by reading Kate Eileen Shannon’s blog when she held a fantastic interview with Stephen Kaminski. Stephen contacted me and kindly gave me a copy of this book in return for an objective review.
This book is the second in the series; the first is the cleverly named, It Takes Two to Strangle: A Damon Lassard Dabbling Detective Mystery, which I have purchased. This is a high accolade from me when I consider my TBR but it is long time since I have read such an entertaining yet at the same time thoughtful cosy mystery.
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