Barbara M. reviewed on 10/1/2019 + 152 more book reviews

I first came across Beth Gutcheon a couple years ago when I bought her book "Five Fortunes" at a garage sale. That book was not a murder mystery but rather a story of women who met at a spa and the book then followed their lives for a period of time after they left the spa. I enjoyed the book so decided to read more. I got "Death At Breakfast" and "The Affliction" from the library. Gutcheon apparently decided to delve into mystery writing, featuring a pair of older women friends as a sleuthing duo. "Death" is the first book in the series.

This book was simply OK. I don't particularly care for the Hope character. She's an overbearing busybody. Also, I found it highly unlikely that the police would be so willing to share information with Hope and Maggie. In real life, police are usually very careful with what they share and with whom, and they generally don't want to encourage amateur sleuths to meddle in their investigation.

As some Amazon reviewers have mentioned, there were story arcs that didn't add anything to the story--Christina (the school head) had issues with her mother frequently calling because of a family matter; there was the lesbian couple who was fearful of someone, and the person and reason were hinted at but not resolved; there was Lily's apparent meltdown during a dive demo (just to name a few things).

There was an interesting twist at the end but the ending was still unsatisfying.

I think Gutcheon should forget about writing mysteries and stick to writing about people and their lives as she did in "Five Fortunes."

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