A review by staticdisplay
Mayhem at the Orient Express by Kylie Logan

4.0

first in the series, we meet main character Bea who's just opening a B&B on an island. her neighbors have been sniping at one another for weeks, so they ultimately end up in court and sentenced to participate in a book group together. it's not going well until someone gets murdered (ha ha). the literary ladies find a body and then decide to get involved in figuring out who's responsible. they also get snowed in, creating a situation similar to their book group reading material - Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express.

I wasn't keen on the Levi side plot; the interactions between Bea and Levi verged on hostile, with no apparent chemistry, so I couldn't figure out Bea's interest.

Spoiler

the resolution was somewhat confusing to me; I couldn't remember at any point in the story Mariah being described as anything other than this flawless bougie lady, but then Chuck or whomever was repeatedly described as a big, sort of bulky dude with an ugly face. hard to envision such a total transformation, by which I mean, doesn't seem to be written consistently. I think first, from a character standpoint, way more interesting to explore this as a guy who's genuinely interested in drag rather than the boring characterization we're presented with, which is that he was a criminal who just became more criminal because duh he was in prison. also written in a kind of unreal way, we have somehow almost randomly found 3 people with a motive to kill this guy all in the same place at the same time. hmm!

I wish the cat played more of an active, cute role.

in any case, it's fun to have a group of women and the literary connection. as far as cozy mysteries go, it was fun to read about them all being stuck inside because of the winter storm. I read one of the later stories in the series and there are just a few more books, so I'm planning to read all of them.