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Murder Unmentionable
Sweet Nothing Lingerie Mystery #1
Meg London

Berkley
Sept 2012/ ISBN 978-0-425-25157-7
Mystery/Cozy
Amazon

Reviewed by Laura Hinds


In the debut novel of the Sweet Nothings Lingerie Mystery series, Emma Taylor has left New York to return to the small town of Paris, Tennessee. There she will nurse her broken heart while helping her aunt, Arabella, revamp her lingerie shop, “Sweet Nothings.”

As Emma works on a business plan, her ex-boyfriend, Guy, who broke her heart into a million little pieces, blows into town to try to woo her back. He’s even arranged a job interview for her with a big-time fashion house back in NYC. Emma is tempted and agrees to meet Guy for dinner the following night. The dinner date falls apart before it begins when Emma finds Guy getting cozy at the restaurant with one of the models she believed he’d been fooling around with back in NYC.

If that isn’t bad enough, early the next morning Emma wakes with a start when she hears screaming. She goes down to the shop and finds a distraught Arabella there. Guy is on the rug at Sweet Nothings, and he is most decidedly dead, murdered, in fact. Given their history, and where Guy was found, Emma becomes Suspect #1. Since the rude police officer in charge of the case seems disinclined to dig any deeper, Emma and Arabella, along with Emma’s friend Liz and NYC friend Kate, decide to investigate on their own.

This is a nice out-of-the-gate effort by Meg London. I’m happy to report that the protagonist, Emma, was usually smart enough to let others know what she was up to, rather than going blindly alone into danger as many cozies are written these days. Yet for me anyway, the mystery was never really a mystery. I knew immediately who the killer would be before the first murder even happened. Yes, there was a second killing. While the other characters in the story had potential for wonderful quirkiness, their quirks were hinted at but not entirely fleshed out. The promise of a new romance for Emma, and her high-school heartthrob Brian, stalled too. I have high hopes for this series though, and would love to see the quirks and romance come to fruition in the next book, and that the murder itself will be more cleverly plotted.

Reviewer Note: author also writes as Peg Cochran.

Reviewer Laura Hinds is the author of Are You Gonna Eat That Banana?
Reviewed 2012
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