A Sloane Templeton Mystery
Bonnie S. Calhoun
Abingdon Press
April 2012/ ISBN-10: 1426733887
Mystery
Amazon
Reviewed
by Cheryl Green
Until quite
recently, Sloan Templeton never held anything more menacing than
a pair of nail clippers. Since giving up her job in cybercrimes
and inheriting her mother's bookstore she is now wielding a gun
and trying in vain to save a woman in a locked car. Garbage cans
go rolling down a flight of stairs, and the gun flies out of her
hand. Turns out the woman was just waiting for Sloan to open up
the bookstore and fell asleep. I never laughed so hard.
Next Sloane's Aunt Verlene arrives at the bookstore covered in what
looks like blood but turns out to be BBQ sauce. Aunt Verlene considers
herself to be a gourmet cook worthy of being on Iron Chef. Reality:
have a ton of antacids and a stomach pump handy if you plan to eat
what Aunt Verlene has cooked.
There are plenty of other quirky characters that pop into the bookstore:
a bunch of senior citizens known as the Granny Oakleys (who never
read anything). There are several scholars who are after a rare
and mysterious book purchased by Sloane's late mother.
Why are the
realtors offering so much money to buy the bookstore building? Throw
in an abusive ex-boyfriend who is part of a gang and it looks more
like a three-ring circus rather than a bookstore.
On top of this someone is sending threatening notes to all of the
computers in the bookstore. More importantly
.. who wants Sloane
dead? And why?
This is a funny and at times violent book that had me glued to my
seat in order to finish it. I needed to find out what was going
to happen next. I enjoyed the twists and red herrings that kept
this a fast-paced novel. I really enjoyed these characters and hope
they will be back soon in a sequel.
First
in what I hope will be a series with Sloane and her friends.
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