Meet Jim and Sally in These Short Stories
When I read the first Lauren Highlands novel earlier this year, I quickly discovered that it wasn’t where we really meet the characters. They’d been introduced in a series of short stories. Murder Most Scenic collects them all into one place, so I picked it up to really see how it all begins.
We get six short stories here. The first one introduces us to Jim Duncan, a State Trooper in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. Here’s, he’s investigating the mysterious death of a woman in a rental cabin. And it’s how he meets assistant public defender Sally Castle, who is assigned to defend his prime suspect. Despite the fact that the two might be on different sides, they are both driven by a desire for justice, and they wind up both getting involved in solving the case.
Over the course of the next five stories, they get involved when a politician’s wife is murder, when a baseball player is killed, when the president of the local 4J club is killed in a barn, and when a brewery contest’s frontrunner is killed.
There is one of these stories that is not like the others. That one features Deputy Coroner Tom Bruns, who gets pulled into a case when it becomes personal for him. Jim is a supporting player, and Sally has a cameo. So, it still features the characters and lets us get to know one of the series’ supporting players better.
Honestly, since I’d just read the one book with the characters, I didn’t remember much about the characters other than Jim and Sally. It will be interesting to see how some of the supporting players I’ve met here pop up in the series.
And, of course, there’s Jim and Sally. They are slowly admitting, at least to themselves, that they are attracted to each other. I enjoyed their flirting in these stories.
The mysteries themselves are good. Short stories don’t always deliver the twists that a full novel does, so a couple of these were straight forward. Others kept me guessing until the end, which is always the sign of a good short story to me.
Do keep in mind that these are police procedurals and not cozies. Some of the content is beyond what you’d find in a cozy. But as long as you know to expect that, you’ll be fine.
Now that I’ve gone back and properly met the characters, I’m looking forward to spending more time with them in the novels. If you haven’t read these stories yet, you’ll be glad you picked up Murder Most Scenic today.
Enjoy the rest of the Laurel Highlands Mysteries.
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