Murder by Death

Disappointed in this one.  I thought the first book was a strong contender, but this felt like a weak follow up.

Alexander writes a beautiful Oregon setting, and creates a strong, likeable MC (Jules), but follows up with some stilted, awkward dialogue between characters.  A scene where Jules' mother and her old high school sweetheart treat her like she's 8 just made me cringe.  Most of the dialogue between Jules and her mother actually read like a middle-school after school special.  A brewing love triangle on the horizon also contributes to my growing unease with this series.

The plotting was... not strong.  I didn't guess the murderer, but I'm not sure anyone really could by using clues because there weren't any.  Jules berates herself at the end for not figuring it out but I don't see how she could have, information was never given to make this character a suspicious one.  

I suspect bad editing needs to be blamed for some of the books weaknesses; it felt like there were chunks missing from the plot and at least once Jules mentioned a character telling her something relevant that she was never actually told.

I think I already own the third book, so I'll read it but unless the quality changes dramatically, this one's going in the box.