Kristina A. reviewed on 11/13/2017 + 1528 more book reviews

Cremains of the Day by Misty Simon is the first installment in A Tallie Graver Mystery series. Tallulah âTallieâ Graver has fallen hard after the dissolution of her marriage to Walden Phillips III. She is now cleaning homes and working part-time at Graver Funeral Home, the family business. Tallie left her vacuum at Darla Hackersham's home and returns to retrieve it. She discovers feet sticking out of a closet and finds Darla with a knife sticking out of her chest. This is just the beginning of strange events plaguing Tallie. Max Bennett, an old friend of Tallie's brother, has returned to town and seems to be following Tallie. He is handsome, but it unnerving. She finds Katie tied up in Gina's shop and her ex-husband down in the alley. What is going on? Tallie needs to unearth the truth before she ends up the next customer at her family's business.

Cremains of the Day is not what I expected. I was hoping for a mystery series that centers around the Graver Funeral Home (it would have been unique). Tallie dislikes the family business and is eager to avoid it (I was eager to avoid her). I thought the characters lacked development. The details readers are given on Tallie are mostly about her marriage and what has happened since it dissolved (along with the fact that she really dislikes the family business). I found her very cliché (another clumsy, down-on-her luck divorcee who does not get along with the local chief of police). She is newly divorced from a disdainful man whom she let take advantage of her in the divorce settlement (of course). There is little information given on the town and local businesses. The mystery is medium level with some nice misdirection. There is mild foul language in Cremains of the Day along with some crude references to Tallie's ex-husbands privates (they get zapped with a stun gun). The next book in A Tallie Graver Mystery series is Grounds for Remorse (I will not be reading it).

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