Murder by Death

A pretty good first in a series where the editor obviously insisted on a "hook" - food, craft, whatever and they went with stained glass.  The mystery itself has absolutely nothing to do with stained-glass in any way and there's only a couple of scenes that actually involve the MC working on stained glass.  I'm not complaining about this at all - I think the book is better for not having tried to bend the mystery around the MC's hobby.

I'm frankly not quite sure about the characters yet - the MC, Georgia, is at times little-mouse timid and at other times strong and mouthy.  I prefer strong and mouthy, so I'm hoping the little-mouse timid falls by the wayside in future books.  Grandpa was an ass, even for an 80-year-old arrested on suspicion of murder.  He wasn't nice to her at all and his attitude about her kitten was enough to seal the deal for me - grandpa can go pound dirt.  I quite liked Carrie and even Georgia's childhood friend, the cop with "aggression issues".  That added a bit of humour I enjoyed.

The murder plotting was obscure enough that I didn't see the murderer before the MC did and I didn't stumble on any obvious holes or inconsistencies.  But a lot of questions were left unanswered:  what the heck was up with grumpy Grandpa's staff at the movie theater?  Why was that even introduced into the story line?  Perhaps it's a lead-in to the next book.  Guess I'll find out since I liked this one enough to read a second book.