Novella Review: Halloween Party Murder by Leslie Meier

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Interesting mystery

Cons: Politics that feels like lectures

The Bottom Line:

Death after party

Novella for Lucy’s fans

I found it okay

After Party Murder

Leslie Meier’s Lucy Stone mysteries were always set around holidays.  But since she’s started headlining holiday mystery anthologies, Lucy has had even more holidays to find dead bodies on.  Halloween Party Murder is now being released on its own as an ebook, and fans who haven’t read it yet are in for a spooky read.

Lucy is helping plan a haunted house fund raiser at the home of relative new comers Ty and Heather Moon.  However, when Lucy finds a dead body during the after party, things take an unexpected turn.  Will she figure out what is going on?

I don’t normally read this series, so I was thrilled to actually recognize the characters of Ty and Heather since they also featured prominently in the previous Halloween novella collection Leslie headlined.  This novella focuses mostly on the mystery at hand, and doesn’t bring in sub-plots involving Lucy’s family.  Again, since I don’t read the series, this was a good thing for me since I don’t have the connections to all the supporting characters.  The mystery was good, and I enjoyed watching Lucy’s efforts to figure out what was happening.  The element I struggled with the most was the politics brought into this story.  There is a local election happening, and the campaigning does play into Lucy’s motives to solve the case, but I still felt like we were being lectured during many of those scenes.

This novella started life as the headliner in the anthology also called Halloween Party Murder.  If you’ve read that collection, you don’t need to read this story again.  But if you haven’t read it yet, you’ll be happy to pick it up on its own.  Since it’s a novella, is much shorter than a typical release for the series, so keep that in mind when you pick it up.

Not being a fan of the series colors my judgement of this story, I’m sure.  Fans will be glad to pick up Halloween Party Murder.  If you don’t already know Lucy, you can probably skip this novella.

NOTE: I received an ARC of the original novella collection.