Name: Mistletoe Murder
ISBN: 9780758228895

Leslie Meier

While moonlighting during the Christmas rush for a trendy mail-order house, Lucy Stone stumbles upon the body of the company's founder and turns sleuth to find a killer in the small town of Tinker's Cove, Maine.

Mistletoe Murder

Sarah Sammis

The original title: Mail Order Murder makes more sense.

While this book is packaged as a cozy, especially with the newer title (editions from 1998 onwards), there's a callousness to this book that later cozies lack. Cozy leads remain optimistic whenever possible. When there is a death, even after finding more than one body, the cozy sleuths grieve. Lucy lacks this level of engagement and reminds me more of Kinsey Millhone. The difference, here, is Millhone is a private detective.

Another thing that sets the book apart from a typical cozy is the early, grizzly death of the main character's cat. Cats and cozies go hand in hand. The cat is never harmed, unless it's destiny is to be a helpful ghost cat. This cat is just a dead cat who wasn't well cared for and isn't grieved over. Worse yet, the cat is a plot device to get Lucy in the right spot to learn some key information.

http://pussreboots.com/blog/2021/comm...

In her very first case, mystery-solving mom Lucy Stone takes time out from her hectic holiday schedule to discover who murdered the owner of the town's famous mail-order company. Reissue.

Annalissa Powner 

I loved this book! A warm feel, quick read and great twist. Great cuddle up during your down time read, and perfect for this time of year.

I want so much to like Leslie Meier. She somehow creates a flow the can be enjoyable to read, and I like the characterization of Lucy as a down to Earth mother and wife who happens to do some Nancy Drew work on the side because she can't pass up a good mystery.

My main issue is that there are a lot of superfluous characters for such a short book (210 pages before the previews of other books). She also jumps around in conversation a lot more than I like to see, and the ending was ruined for me because I didn't know who was married to whom and it took a while to catch up to the pace of the book.

I read Trick or Treat Murder first because of the theme, and I like this one more than that.