Murder at Honeybee Lake (Shadow of a Doubt Book 2) by Jessica Aiken-Hall – Review by Sherry Sharpnack

Murder at Honeybee Lake by Jessica Aiken-Hall
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

WARNING: Somewhat graphic descriptions of jailhouse violence and suicide attempts.

“Murder at Honeybee Lake” is a follow-up to “Rebecca Remains,” a very twisty paranormal mystery. This one begins a year after “Rebecca…” resolves. In this one, Tessa’s friend Randy – who provided her with a guest room when she was hiding from Keith – has been living with Ben at their home at the lake for a year now. Down at the dock one evening, Ben pulls a dead body out from under the dock. Randy handles this badly, refusing to believe that Ben found an actual body until the police confirm it the next day. Ben is deeply offended by Randy’s behavior, yet he readily accepts Randy’s marriage proposal later in the week. Their engagement starts on a rocky note as Randy is arrested for the murder of his … already dead lover? WHAT? Denver died years before, from cancer. How did he end up in the lake? And how did the murder weapon show up under Randy’s deck? Ben runs away from all the drama, leaving Emily’s (Tessa’s sister) wife Mandy to solve the murder, as she knows her brother Randy could NOT have murdered any one! If Randy didn’t do it, did Ben? Did Denver “engineer” his own death? Randy undergoes severe abuse and homophobia from the prison guards, and has to depend upon Mandy and Randy’s estranged father, a lawyer, to get him out of the horrendous jail conditions. This is pretty hard to read, even though Randy finds a friend in the jail’s nurse and a closeted gay guard, Simon.
The paranormal is much stronger in this book than in book #1. Randy and Ben both act strangely at times, and both attempt suicide. Were they … not themselves … when the suicide attempts occurred? This is all really twisty and the plot points of either Ben or Randy being the murderer are very convincingly drawn. So who murdered the already-dead Denver? Can Tessa contact Denver to find out?
Parts of this novel get pretty repetitive, but it is twisty and suspenseful. The repetition knocks down the star rating from a 3.3ish to an even 3 stars.

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