What Happened to Max?
I got tripped up a bit this year since none of the library systems I have access to had the next couple Death on Demand Mysteries on digital audio. Heck, I had to dig out my hardcover of the previous book in the series. But I was able to find Dead Days of Summer, book seventeen, on audio CD, so I just got it listened to. While I enjoyed it overall, it did have flaws.
The series is set on the (fictional) island of Broward’s Rock off the coast of South Carolina, where Annie Darling runs a mystery bookstore. Her husband, Max, runs an inquiry agency, which is helpful given the number of mysteries the two seem to get involved in.
As this book opens, Annie thinks the biggest problem she is facing is keeping the surprise birthday party she is planning for Max a secret, especially given how Laurel, Max’s mother, keeps thinking for herself. But that’s before Max vanishes. He’d taken a new case that Monday afternoon, and he let Annie know he’d be home late. But he never comes home. The search uncovers a dead body. What does it mean? Where is Max?
While I knew what the ultimate outcome of the book would be, I was quite caught up in the story at the beginning. I needed to know what exactly was going on as well. However, the story stalls out in the middle, with nothing new happening for quite a while. Fortunately, it picks up as the story heads into the final act. While the ending does make sense, it leaves a big why unanswered. It was a pretty big question I had early on, too.
The usual characters are all here, and I enjoyed getting to spend time with them. But I did feel that one character seemed to be pretty different from the last time we saw him. It was a change I was happy to see since I felt his personality transplant last time was out of character. But I do feel like the series relies a little too much on the trope of hostile authority figures, and that has driven some of the changes in the series, not necessarily for the better. We don’t really get to know the suspects until the third act, but they are good for the page time they get.
Despite the more serious plot, I did feel we got some laughs, still, usually thanks to Laurel. I really have come to love her character as the series has gone along.
While the language has calmed down from earlier books in the series, there is still more than you would usually expect in a cozy.
And Kate Reading did her usual great job bringing the story to life with her narration.
The early books in the series went overboard in the references to other mysteries. Now that we are in 2006, I was looking for references to books I was reading back then. Sadly, these references seem to be mostly gone with only a handful. I liked the happy medium we had for a while and hope that comes back.
While Dead Days of Summer won’t be my favorite in the series, I’m still glad I got to read it. Fans of the series won’t want to miss it despite the flaws.
Check out the rest of the Death on Demand Mysteries.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for stopping by. In order to combat spam, I moderate most comments. I'll get to your comment as soon as I can.