Book Review: The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club by Susan McBride (Debutante Dropout Mysteries #3)

Stars: 3 out of 5
Pros: The characters of Andy and Cissy

Cons: The plot is too thin

The Bottom Line:

Good main characters

Pull you through a weaker plot

Series fans will like

The Lonely Hearts Club was Lonely for a Plot

Andrea "Andy" Kendricks is making her third appearance in a mystery novel with The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club. However, it's Andy's mother Cissy who really takes the lead as detective here.

Andy was looking forward to a nice relaxing Saturday alone. Unfortunately, one of her mother's best friends, Bebe Kent, has died, and Andy gets talked into attending the memorial service to be Cissy's moral support. After the service, Andy learns that Cissy thinks her friend was murdered. Clearly, Cissy's grief is affecting her mental health.

Bebe had recently moved into the Belle Meade, a plush retirement community for the extremely rich that had just opened in Dallas, Texas. When another resident is found dead, Cissy again finds the normal looking circumstances suspicious. Could she be right?

Having read the previous two books in the series, I expected the plot of the book to be a little slow right out of the gate. However, I wasn't prepared for this. Unlike previous books that picked up speed as the book progressed, the plot moved forward with glacial speed. Compounding the problem, too much of the story is revealed on the back of the book (and way more then I revealed here). And frankly, that may be the entire problem. Obviously, I can't figure out how much of my disappointment with the book is because of poor marketing. Anyway, I kept waiting for something to happen that I didn't already know. I was a few pages ahead of Andy most of the time when it came to plot developments I wasn't expecting. The climax did grab me and keep me glued to the page.

It's a good thing that I love Andy and Cissy because they made up for the thin story. Their mother/daughter dynamic is especially fun to watch. Both are very real characters I care about, so I found it easy to keep reading.

Very few new characters this time around get too much development. They serve their purpose to fill in pieces of the story. The one exception is Annabelle, a childhood friend of Andy's and owner of Belle Meade. Her character gets more page time and I enjoyed getting another perspective on Andy from their interactions.

As with the previous books, the story is told first person from Andy's point of view. The writing is sharp with plenty of humor. It keeps the story moving and kept me interested even when I knew how a scene would turn out.

Die hard fans of the series will still enjoy reading The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club. But don't bother reading if you don't love the characters.