Have Your Cake and Kill Him Tooby Nancy Martin
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780451217639
Series: Blackbird Sisters #5
Publication Date: April 6, 2006
Pages: 260
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: NAL / New American Library
When the tycoon owner of a spectacularly tacky sports bar is killed, Nora Blackbird suspects a secretive politician, a shady former rock star doubling as a pastry chef, and a dangerous aristo-brat on the verge of stardom.
This one was sort of weird, with Martin juggling a lot of balls in the air at once. There’s Nora’s on-again-off-again relationship with Michael and the constant tension his ties to the mafia brings; a new suitor half-heartedly trying to woo her away; her sister Emma’s continued uneasy relationship with sobriety; the bizarre behaviour of her party-planning friend, and the dead owner of the Fitch estate and a new hot-wing sports bar called Cupcakes.
Martin continues to weave uneasy topics into her plots – this one involving the disreputable dead man and his step-daughter – but mostly this felt like a transition book; more about the character development and overall arc than its own murder mystery.
From a plotting perspective, it was well done – even on re-reading I hadn’t remembered how it ended, but the result was a story that felt more than a little seedy and dissatisfying. Good but with an unpleasant after-taste.