When 28-year-old Agnes Blythe, the contented bifocals-wearing half of an academic power couple, is jilted by her professor boyfriend for the town Pilates instructor, her future is suddenly less than certain. So when her glamorous, eccentric Great Aunt Effie arrives in town and offers a job helping to salvage the condemned Stagecoach Inn, what does Agnes have to lose? But work at the inn has barely begun when the unlikely duo find the body of manipulative Kathleen Todd, with whom Agnes and Effie both have recently had words. Words strong enough to land them at the top of the suspect list.
The pair have clearly been framed, but no one else seems interested in finding the real murderer and Agnes and Effie's sleuthing expertise is not exactly slick. Nevertheless, they're soon investigating a suspect list with laundry dirtier than a middle school soccer team's and navigating threats, car chases, shotgun blasts, and awkward strolls down memory lane.
In Bad Housekeeping, the first novel in the Agnes & Effie cozy mystery series by Maia Chance, danger mounts, deadlines loom, ancient knob-and-tube wiring is explored, and the ladies learn a thing or two about the awful, wonderful mistake that is going back home.
Review:
In my opinion, this cozy mystery is an okay read. I enjoyed the mystery aspect of it but I had a hard time connecting to Agnes, maybe it was her choice of boyfriend that had me annoyed or the fact that she seemed a bit of a pushover when it came to him. I thought that Aunt Effie was more with it when it comes to men. As far as the mystery itself went I enjoyed that aspect of the book.The setting was charming and the fixer/upper part I always like in a book. There was a fair amount of action in this book and quite a few red herrings that I fell for. This was not an easy mystery for me to solve despite the problems I may have had with Agnes she does a good job as an amateur sleuth. Effie and all of her antics were very amusing.
Final Thoughts:
This cozy does have all of the aspects of what I like in a cozy. it has the setting, the quirky characters and the murder mystery that stumped me. I will read more of this series. i am hoping that Agnes will develop more of a backbone when it comes to men.This review was originally posted on Cindy's Book Binge
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6 June, 2017:
Reviewed