Murder by Death

I moved this one up my ethereal list because it was the 'fish-or-cut-bait' book for me, and based on friends' reviews, I was expecting a 'cut-bait' outcome and figured I'd just get it over with.

I don't know, though.  It's definitely a very average read but it wasn't as god-awful irritating as I expected it to be, based on some of the recent books in this series (and her other series as well).

In Sugar and Iced the author ended with a cliffhanger that was so melodramatic it made me want to throw the book into a shredder and be done with it.  This one picks up a few months afterwards and fortunately, the plot wasn't nearly as patently ridiculous as the cliffhanger made it sound.  The author finally stops dicking around with the romances too, which is a welcome relief to all of us that found the triangles stupid and worthless.  (I do like Manny though, and hope he sticks around.)  I saw some hints of the writing I used to thoroughly enjoy in the dialog and the characters remain as likeable as they ever were.

Unfortunately, the mystery was rather transparent, both Mel and Angie (mostly Angie, to be fair) decide acting like adolescents is a prudent course of action for the entire book, and the author seems to suffer from (another) massive logic fail.  Either that or she really believes her readers are incurably stupid:  "The murderer wasn't trying to kill me.  I'll prove it:  I'll sneak out and go to this party and if no one tries to shoot me, then obviously, I wasn't the target."  

Finishing the book, I can't say whether I'll read the next one or drop the entire series in my go-away box.  I'll let it sit there awhile and see how I feel later on.