Excellent read, but really, in comparison to the first two books, I’m calling this a 3.5 star read.
If you haven’t yet dived into the Mace Bauer series, the characters are great, sassy, smart, witty, but still, old-time Florida – and most definitely not the postcard Florida one thinks about when thinking about a beach vacation. This is cattle country.
The plot of this one was well done; the author does a very good job keeping the reader too busy to really speculate too heavily about who the killer is. At least one plot twist kept me from being at least entirely right when I did guess.
So what cost it the half star? Mama got on my last nerve with the Bridezilla bit and the constant one-track song she played about Mace’s looks, about her ability to keep a man, about her sister Maddie’s weight. She went on and on and ON, and she wasn’t ever listening to anything anyone else tried to say. She was too busy listening to the sound of her own voice. Mama came off vain, shallow and narcissistic instead of eccentric, quirky and charming as she has in previous books. Still it was a small blip on in otherwise entertaining read. We see more of Carlos in this book and that was a definite bonus – I like learning more about this man and I like his less antagonistic interactions with Mace. The scene on the lake was the best part of the book for me.
I’m looking forward to reading Mama Sees Stars.