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Lethal in Old Lace
Consignment Shop #5
Duffy Brown

Crooked Lane
March 13, 2018/ ISBN 978-1-68331-535-3
Mystery/Cozy

Reviewed by Laura Hinds

Consignment shop owner Reagan Summerside is newly engaged to attorney Walker Boone when she finds herself once again in the middle of a murder investigation. This time her elderly neighbors, sisters Annie Fritz and Elsie Abbot, are the chief suspects in the death of rest-home resident Bonnie Sue McGrath. Reagan knows the sisters are innocent, and when it looks like there was a previous murder at the Sleepy Pines Retirement Home, she sets out to find the truth.

Willie Fishbine was running a scam selling Spring Chicken youth products and stock at the Sleepy Pines Retirement Home. The scam brings about more motives and suspects for the killings and the waters are muddied for the amateur sleuth.

While Reagan, her Aunt Kiki and even her mother, the judge, dig for clues, the situations they find themselves in are becoming more and more outlandish. I think it is fair to say that a great deal of the book is farcical and the reader needs to realize that early on and roll with it.

I have read some of the previous books in the series and I think they were somewhat tamer and more enjoyable for my particular reading taste. It's been awhile since there was a new book in this series, and in my opinion, the author tried a little too hard to recapture the atmosphere of previous books.

If there is another book to come in the series I will certainly give it a chance. It may be that Duffy Brown just has to refind her footing with the Consignment Shop Mystery series.

Reviews of other titles in this series

Iced Chiffon #1
Killer in Crinolines #2
Pearls and Poison #3

lethalinoldlace #5

Reviewers Note: Duffy Brown also writes the Cycle Path Mysteries

Reviewed 2018
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