Riddle in Review by Kathi Daley

Title: Riddle in Review
Author:Kathi Daley
Series: The Inn at Holiday Bay #22
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Takes Place: Holiday Bay, Maine
Main Character: Abby, Georgia, Jeremy Mylie, Lou
Other Characters:
Pets: a big cat named Rufus and 2 dogs named Molly, Ramos
Stars: 3

I was really looking forward to the 22nd book in The Inn at Holiday Bay series and I must say I was a little disappointed. It seemed to be all over the place with a lot of characters. I needed a score card to keep up. And the mystery concluded with a suspect who wasn’t even part of the plot and seemed to come out of nowhere. I like a whodunit that I can try to figure it but this would have been almost impossible to figure out.

The story starts with a missing bilingual parrot that Beck has been hired to find. This story kinda dropped and we didn’t hear about the parrot again until much later in book. I had almost forgotten about it.

Vanessa is out of town and has left her feisty Aunt Lou to take care of the bookshop. Someone is leaving one star reviews for several of the small business around town. At first it is just an inconvenience and a bit unsettling since the reviews seem to be bogus. Then these same small business start to be vandalized. It seems like the person giving bad reviews is also responsible for the vandalizing. For now, this still seems to be more of an inconvenience and the loss of some profits due to some businesses having to temporarily close until the can repair any damage. That is until there is a fire at one business and, the police find a body. Now it becomes a mystery to find out if this was murder or or did someone accidentally end up dead.

Colt, the chief of police and Abby’s boyfriend, is out of town so the women business owners in town take it upon themselves to try and solve this mystery. With the help of the town bartender/computer hacker, they trace the reviews back to someone in town. Is this person also the one who is vandalizing the business and have they actually committed homicide? Or was it an accident that someone died in the fire? Is all of this connected in some way to the reviews? You will have to read to find out.

Other highlightsin the story are Colt dealing with issues concerning his nephew, a couple gets engaged, Georgia and Tannerreevaluateeevalute their relationship, a new character may be staying in Holiday Bay.

This was not my favorite in the series and I struggled at times to finish it but I did. I will still read the next book in the series once it is released but if this had been the first book in the series, it would not have convinced me to finish the series.

If you read this, give me your thoughts in the comments.