Murder by Death

I'm going to go with 3.5 stars on this one. 

If you're a Molly Harper fan, this one is not a disappointment, but it's not her best.  If you've not read Molly Harper before, this is not the book I'd suggest starting with (that would be the first Jane Jameson book, Nice Girls Don't have Fangs).

A couple of things that held back my full enjoyment: for starters, the title has no bearing on the story at all.  I have absolutely no idea what it is supposed to refer to and I kept waiting for it's basis to be revealed.  Additionally, there's usually more of a mysterious element to the plot, and this one lacked any such questions.  Well, that might not be true: there was some mystery at first about who was behind Nik's odd behaviour, but that's solved well before the end of the book.  I guess you could say the book had a rolling plot: questions/mysteries pop up and are solved as the book progresses.  The final climatic scene, however, wasn't in any way a big reveal;  I can't believe anybody who reads this doesn't know who is going to walk in that door.

I still had a great time reading this though - I love all the characters in Half Moon Hollow and Ms. Harper is an ace when it comes to writing characters I love to read about.  Plus, if there was such a thing as a "snark" ranking, she'd be #1 on the list.  Her humor is mine and I'll gladly read just about anything she writes.