Murder by Death

I read the first few in this series almost 2 decades ago and remembered them as fairly humorous cozies: not great, but good.  So when I was last in the states I picked up a copy of Estate of Mind in a used book store to see if memory served and whether or not it was worth continuing the series.  It is not.

I suspect there's an excellent plot here:  paintings missing since WWII, art theft, white elephant sales, etc.  But I can't get past the writing.  It's not bad in the traditional sense: I'm sure it's well edited and I didn't see any glaring errors.  But the author's style just isn't suited to me anymore (if it ever was - I do remember I quit her other series because of her style in those books).  Abby "wails" when "exclaims", "blurts out", or even "shrieks" might be better choices, and unfortunately, she "wails" a lot.  A lot of the banter felt forced and her choice to exaggerate some of the characters' personalities just didn't work for me.

I'm not rating this because it might be a great story for someone else; this really is just a style issue for me and I didn't stick with it long enough to really rate it.