If you like funny murder mysteries, you might want to check out Who’s Killing the Old (and mostly adorable) Mystery Writers? by Jon Spoelstra. I won this in a Goodreads Giveaway late last year.
Getting the Mystery Writers Together
This book is the fifth book in a series. I haven’t read the previous books. There’s enough information about what happened previously that you don’t feel lost if you didn’t read the previous books, but it’s not so much information that you’d feel like they were recapping the previous books if you’ve read them.
The main idea is that a very successful mystery writer has decided to collaborate with several other semi-successful mystery writers. Most of them previously collaborated on a book, which was a best-seller. Now, they are gathered together to make a second attempt. Unfortunately, one by one, the writers start getting killed off, some of them in the same way they killed off characters in the previous book.
Fortunately, Charlie North and Ben Tucker, a murder mystery-solving duo, jump in to solve the crime. They are the main characters from the previous books as well.
What You Should Know
According to the description, which says it’s for people 50+, I’m about a decade short of being the intended audience, but I still found this to be an enjoyable book.
Is the Solution Too Obvious?
To me, the mark of a really good murder mystery novel is when you think you have things figured out several times throughout the story only to realize you’re wrong. There were at least three characters who at one point I was convinced were the murders. Then I’d change my mind a little later in the story. I did not expect the ending we got, although it was a good resolution. Normally, I don’t like open-ended endings, but there are a few things left unresolved at the end. I liked the uncertainty.
Warnings About This Mystery
As a warning to readers, there are a lot of characters. I didn’t keep them all straight all of the time. Once some of them start getting killed off, you get some cops and other characters, so the amount of characters never really slows down. If, like me, you get a bit confused when there are a lot of characters, I’d suggest focusing mostly on the main characters.
This book does have a few editing errors, mostly the wrong word, such as “he” instead of “the.” There were enough of them that it was noticeable, but there weren’t so many that it was unreadable or distracting.
The book description says, “By the way, this book doesn’t have cursing, not even amusing cursing.” I’m not sure if that was meant to be funny or if I’m missing something. There are several swear words in the book, especially in the jokes at the beginning of the chapters. As for sexual content and violence, that’s more behind-the-scenes than on the actual pages. A few of the jokes at the beginning of the chapters got a little dirty for my taste.
Final Thoughts
Overall, this was an enjoyable book. I wouldn’t seek out the other books in the series, but I also wouldn’t necessarily avoid them either (if that makes sense). This book was an odd mix for me. It has the cozy mystery tone with it being kind of casual and funny. Yet, it has some swearing, which makes it no longer a cozy mystery in my mind.
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