Novella Review: Only the Good Die Young by Julie Mulhern (Country Club Murders #1.5)

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Fun and funny story starring Frances

Cons: None if you keep in mind the length

The Bottom Line:

Frances on a case

Her dismay will make you laugh

Short; enjoyable

It Was a Fall, Wasn’t It?

Another series I need to get back to is the Country Club Murders.  While I have the next several books in the series already, I jumped back in with the short novella Only the Good Die Young.

Of course, there’s a reason for that.  While this story was released a couple of years ago, it falls between the first and second book chronologically.  And those who are familiar with the series will figure out why this story was written so much later pretty easily.

You see, the series normally focuses on Ellison Russell, a painter who keeps stumbling over dead bodies in her community.  After the first book, she and her daughter headed over to Europe for a few weeks to recover from what happened.  And if you’ve read the first book, that makes sense.  If you haven’t read it yet, you should definitely start there.

So what happens back home in Kansas City, Missouri while Ellison is gone?  It turns out that finding dead bodies runs in the family when Ellison’s mother, Frances Walford, gets involved with a mystery.  When she goes with one of her friends to check on the friend’s mother-in-law, they find the woman dead in her bedroom.  But it couldn’t be murder.  Frances doesn’t get involved in murder.  The woman hit her head in a fall, right?  Right?

This series always has a funny tone to it, but this story really ramped up the humor.  Frances is very concerned that her involvement in this stay completely secret.  She doesn’t want Ellison to hear about it at all when she comes back to town.  Those worries made me laugh several times.

This really is a short novella, almost a long short story.  I got through it in about an hour.  As a result, there isn’t much to the mystery.  Still, what was here kept my attention and interest, and things make sense at the end.

Likewise, I don’t feel like the suspects got much time to develop.  We did get some insight into Frances.  Much needed insight, at least for me.  And I appreciated that.

The story takes place in 1974.  While that’s not a huge part, it does make for a few fun moments for us as we are reminded of how things were fifty years ago.

Fans will be rewarded by Only the Good Die Young no matter where they are in the series.  Just know it is a short read when you sit down and you’ll be rewarded.

Tee up the rest of the Country Club Murders.