A Book Signing To Die For: Beach Reads by Judy Moore – Review by Anantha Rusum

A Book Signing To Die For by Judy Moore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A very neat cozy mystery book which I enjoyed reading thoroughly. It has all the elements of a good book in it, a solid plot, good characters, a murder and a hint of romance. Sometimes you pick up a book not knowing much about the author or the book itself and read it with an open mind, with minimal expectations, it is a very pleasurable feeling when the book starts growing on the reader as you flip it page by page. This is precisely the effect this book had on me.

Beck O’Rourke co-owns Beach Reads bookstore and coffee shop with her grandmother. They live in an apartment along with Beck’s sister above the bookstore. They have book signing events which happen very frequently where they get small time and relatively well-to-do authors to speak and then sign the books bought in their store. On one such book signing event, they invite a Cozy mystery author, Marcia Graybill to their bookstore. As people love her mysteries, they get an audience of over 50 that day and the event turn out to be very successful.

Shortly after, in the night, there is a dead body found behind the jewelry store, which is adjacent to the book shop. The police department, headed by a handsome police detective Devon, arrive on the scene of the crime and make their own conclusions, which Becky does not concur with. She heads off to investigate the murder on her own. The murderer does not like this intrusion and neither does the police department. Now Becky’s life is in danger and she has to go all out to crack this case by herself.
It is a brilliant plot and a very edgy read; I could not guess the murderer till the very end. There are times however when I did feel Becky was taking too much liberty and it was amusing that people did not mind her intrusions or her queries. She is not a hired detective after all. It was like reading one of Ms. Marple’s mysteries of Agatha Christie, but Ms. Marple would take an effort to acquaint herself with her suspects personally before extracting information from them. Becky goes a fast forward route and with one visit or one phone call, her suspects seem to disclose quite a lot to her, which I found slightly amusing. I was also expecting a slightly longer romantic liaison between the main leads, but considering it a cozy mystery, it is understandable that the inferences have to be subtle.

Otherwise I loved every bit of it, the characters were adorable. And as I said earlier, I read this book with a very open mind and as a reader, reaped the rewards. A very fine book and looking forward to read more from this author!

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