Alpine Advocate by Mary Daheim

This is the first book in the Alpine series about small town newspaper publisher Emma Lord. Mary Daheim also writes the Bed and Breakfast Murder Mystery series and I've read about 9 of those. The B&B books are kind of hit or miss for me--sometimes I love them and other times I just kind of slog through. This is actually the series Daheim wrote first, so my OCD way of reading things in order was a little messed up as far as publishing dates go!

These Alpine books take place in a tiny logging town near Seattle and the first book is about a murder in the local moneyed family. The mystery itself was pretty lame, I saw the motive for the murder after about 45 pages but nobody else figured that out in the book till the end. The killer was less obvious, in fact kind of popped out of nowhere, but it was a little frustrating to see the allegedly smart people missing the point so much. It was very heavy handed in the foreshadowing for the reader to notice that big clue, but stupid that nobody in the story was hit over the head with that same plot hammer!

I will keep reading this series though, because in my experience, in most series like these smaller, laid back niche mystery series, the first book always kind of stinks. They have too much back story to get to and too much groundwork for the town and lead characters so that the mystery part is pretty dumb.

Plus, I find it very relaxing to read these light "Murder She Wrote" type book series. They're always pleasant, have quirky townspeople, fun settings, and I like them for speedy bedtime reading. In this blog you'll see more Alpine, B&B, Tea Shop, Knitting, Needlework, Chocoholic, and numerous other series pop up quite often. Cause that's how I roll.

Stay tuned for: the new James Patterson book, Swimsuit...