Rip Your Heart Out (Ripple Effect Mystery, #4)

by Jeanne Glidewell

[Mystereity Reviews]

I'm a bit late to the Ripple Effect series, this is the fourth book but only the first I've read and I can safely say this can be read as a introduction to the series or as a standalone. Following the adventures of retired couple Rapella and her husband, Rip, as they travel around the US in their RV, they find themselves in the middle of a mystery wherever they go. Rapella, a charmingly naive chatterbox, made for an entertaining sleuth (and I enjoyed Itsy as the sidekick!) and I was drooling over the beautiful scenery on their cruise. Add in a mouthy cockatoo, a sweet St Bernard and a zippy, lively plot and there was a lot to like!

The plot, surrounding an anonymous tip that a local woman's death was not due to natural causes and is later determined to be murder. Suspicion is thrown onto Sydney, one of Rip's cardiac nurses and the niece of the recently deceased woman. There were many facets to the plot, from the seemingly "haunted" house to the squabbling siblings to the possible cache of missing gold and I was sucked in from the start. From the breathtaking scenery on the cruise that made me drool to the many lovable (and not so lovable) characters that jumped off the page and the hijinks that Rapella got into had me chuckling (especially the Uber part!) While I read a lot of cozy mysteries, there have been few that were as fun as this and and I'm definitely going to read the other books in the series.