A Killer Read (Ashton Corners Book Club, #1)

by Erika Chase

An innocent book club meeting soon turns into a crime scene in A Killer Read, the first book in a series of cozy whodunits

When the members of the Ashton Corners Mystery Readers and Cheese Straws Society gather for their first book club meeting at Molly Matthews's Southern mansion, they never expect it to turn into an actual crime scene--the group finds a stranger has been fatally shot and the murder weapon is Molly's very own antique gun. As the six friends set out to investigate, club member Lizzie Turner, a reading specialist with a penchant for mysteries, receives cryptic manuscript chapters in her mailbox. Lizzie must decipher the clues and protect her friends from the killer's sights before it's too late.

• ISBN10: 0425247031
• ISBN13: 9780425247037
• Publish Date: 3 April 2012
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S.
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780425247037

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

I'm not sure how I felt about this book - perhaps a tad ambivalent. The murder mystery was well developed, with good clues, red herrings, blind alleys, and a good conclusion. I appreciated the references throughout the book to other mystery writers too. I think my ambivalence stems from the characters, mostly Lizzy. She, and to a lesser degree a couple of the other characters felt wooden or robotic. A lot of the writing consisted of outlining Lizzy's day, with little or no colour thrown in to make it more interesting. Some of this might be the result of the third person narrative, but I don't think that can explain all of it. It just felt a bit like I was reading about an automaton. Not all of the characters struck me like this; Paige for example, while a minor player, felt far more three-dimensional to me.

I'll keep my eye out for the next book, but it won't be high on my list of must-haves yet.