Who is the Christmas Grinch?
At the beginning of the year, I hadn’t read any of Rosalie Spielman’s Hometown Mysteries. And here I am finishing up book four, Home for the Homicides. Obviously, I’m enjoying the series, and this book was no exception.
The first book introduced us to Tessa Treslow, who has just retired from a career in the United States Army. In that first book, she just intended to return to her hometown of New Oslo, Idaho, for a short visit until she decided where to move permanently, but she wound up deciding to stay.
This book opens in the middle of December. New Oslo has been subjected to some pranks in the last few days, but things are about to escalate. First, Tessa and her aunt Edna find a man who was car jacked and left on the side of the road. Then, various businesses in town are being vandalized. But when a murder victim is found at the sight of a fire, Tessa really steps up her sleuthing. Can she figure out who is responsible before things take a second deadly turn?
Because of the seemingly random nature of the attacks, it’s hard to zero in on a suspect or motive. That frustrates the police and Tessa, who isn’t exactly working with them but isn’t exactly discouraged from doing a little sleuthing on her own. Quite often, I would find a story like this frustrating since I don’t feel like the story is really moving forward. That wasn’t the case here. Yes, I did think about it, but the way the story was evolving did make it feel like we were moving forward even if it was slowly. While we do reach a logical conclusion, a couple of things are still a little ambiguous at the end. In this case, it does work, but it’s not quite the tight solution I’m used to and prefer.
My bigger issue with the book was the ages of the characters we met along the way. I feel like we were missing a generation in the family tree, which kept bugging me.
On the other hand, it was great to spend more time with Tessa, Edna, and the rest of the regulars. I love Tessa’s family, and we got to meet more of them in this book, which was great. The relationships feel real, and this is a family I would love to spend more time with. We’ve gotten to know others in the community, and while we didn’t see quite as much of some of them as in books past, I did enjoy their page time as well.
And this book has a nice Christmas vibe going for it. It adds to the story in some creative ways and is definitely a story we could only get at this time of the year.
If you haven’t started this series yet, you are in for a treat. Home for the Homicides gives us a nice holiday visit that fans will enjoy.
Plan for return visits to the Hometown Mysteries.
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