Marie Claude Gagnon

In fact, it would be 3 1/2 * if we could :)

Meg's grandfather has hired a private detective to find his long lost lover and Meg's grandmother. But, he's sadly too late, she had been murdered, just a few months ago. Her surviving cousin requests the detective and Meg to find the murdered in exchange of information about the family.

This new installment has funny moments, like other books in the series, but also runs deeper into emotions and family sentiments that other books. I had to dry my eyes a couple of times... I enjoy this series, but, as a mother, I always catch myself thinking that Meg is pretty absent from her sons' lives, at least when mystery calls! She's lucky to have a big extended family who's always ready to take care of her kids and stuff! ;o)

Disclaimer: I received this book through the Goodreads Giveaways program

This is the kind of book you should read as a teenager, and then later on in life. Up here in Québec, this book rarely appears on mandatory or recommended reading in school, so I did not get to it for a really looooong time. I saw the movie in my late twenties, and kept telling myself I should read the book. I finally got to it, right in the middle of the noise around its “sequel” (which I have no intention of reading)...

I enjoyed reading Scout's voice and perception of the world around her and all that adults say or don't say around kids. Now I have to put this book in my daughters' hands (one is 22 the other 17) to be able to discuss it with them :)

Liza is a publicist and a sudoku passionate, who after getting tired of Hollywood life decided to go back to the small town where she grew up, Maiden's Bay. Jenny is a young actress, represented by Liza, who had a really bad experience in Mayden's Bay, experience a director is set to use to give more dimension to her interpretation in a movie that is filmed on location. Liza needs all her talents to help Jenny when one of the movie's major is found dead...

Liza write a column on sudoku in the local newspaper and one of these columns is provided at the beginning of each chapter of the book, which I enjoy. I enjoyed the first book in this series, but this time, the fun was not as present. Some of the characters were weak (I guess playing with somebody's head is not as easy to render in a cozy book as the author thought) and I had a hard time with the end of the book (not the solution itself, but rather how the guilty was outed by Liza). I will probably check for the third at the library anyway.

In this chapter of the Harris family's story, murder strikes a little too close to home, since the victim is the ex-fiance of the hero's daughter Laura. When Laura herself becomes the target of the murderer's attacks, there's no way Charlie and Diesel will stay on the sidelines...

Like most cozy mysteries, this is an easy and entertaining read. I enjoy this series, particularly because of the relationship the humans share with Diesel, a really “talkative” cat who has always an important part in the investigation. But be reassured, this is not the kind of cat who can read books and give clues. He has instinct and the trust of his humans. In fact, he reminds me a lot of my first cat; he “talked” a lot, comforted me when I was sad, and I could trust his instinct about people...