Instead of a relaxing summer, Lucy is skittering from one problem to another. Her misbehaving dog breaks out his kennel regularly, killing the neighbor’s chickens. A formal hearing on the dog’s future has the whole family on pins and needles. When the family treks to the nighborhood pond to cool off in the summer heat, they find it has been taken over by “naturalists” from out of town, i. e., nudists. Lucy and her family, along with the townsfolk are not happy about this development, but it gets worse when one of Lucy’s daughters decides to join the naturalists, au naturel. And because of an endangered lichen, first the annual Fourth of July fireworks display is canceled, and then the parade follows suit. It appears that lobsters are being poached, and to round up the the summer’s highlights, Toby gets is a fight and is arrested. Oh, and Lucy finds another murder victim. It’s just your typical summer in Tinker’s Cove. Well, not really, but it makes for a lot of entertaining reading. It’s always fun to spend time with Lucy and her family, even in the heat of summer when a killer is on the loose. ( )

After beginning Star Spangled Murder, I thought I might have read it before. The first 50 pages sounded familiar. I searched for the book among my blog posts but didn't find it. Then I searched my Librarything account. Nothing there either. To further confuse me was the prologue titled Fourth of July Murder. I was convinced that I had read this book before. I even googled Leslie Meier's book list thinking that maybe this was a book that was retitled. It wasn't. I am guessing that having read 4 of Meier's books this year has left me numb. They all begin the same way and I can no longer differentiate between them.

Star Spangled Murder begins with Lucy Stone's dog Kudo killing her neighbor Prudence Pratt's chickens in their Tinker's Cove, Maine neighborhood. Kudo has a habit of getting out of the house and running wild through the neighborhood. The story then switches to a group of nudists who are skinny dipping in the pond that borders Pratt's property. In addition, the local lobstermen are upset about poachers and wonder whether Pratt's husband and son are guilty. Then next thing that happens is that the fourth of july fireworks are canceled by the town in order to protect purple spotted lichen, a rare species. A huge suspension of belief is necessary to follow this series but canceling fireworks to save the lichen is too far for me to go. Is one night of fireworks going to destroy the flora and fauna of Tinker's Cove? No.

I was happy when I read that Mrs. Pratt had died. She is that always complaining, nosy neighbor that we all have had at some point in our lives. It didn't matter to me who killed her, just that someone did. She is probably the best villain that the series has ever had. She wanted Kudo to be euthanized and even though she thought the nudists were immoral, she watched them sunbathe with her binoculars.

A disappointing read. ( )

This cozy mystery set in Tinker’s Cove, Maine hit all my favorite notes. Lucy Stone was at home in her small town, wrangling her four kids, her dog (there’s a hilarious scene early on with the dog that had me in stitches) and the town’s current issues of the week—skinny dippers, and the fact that the local tree huggers want to cancel the Fourth of July fireworks in order to preserve some obscure species of lichen.

Add in the fact that lobster are going missing from the traps, and tempers are flaring. Then, of course, a body turns up. This is one of my favorite cozy mystery series and the ones set in Tinker’s Cove with all the favorite characters running around are the very best ones in the series. So I ate this up!

As Lucy has to juggle her eldest daughter’s longing to hang out with the nudists, her son’s desire to flirt, make hundreds of paper carnations for the 4th of July parade, she also has to solve a murder… and Toby is suddenly in trouble with the law. Then there’s her guilty dog, the chicken killer. Cudo was a canine character that was not always well behaved, and it was sad always seeing him locked in his cage, but I’ll admit I sniffled a little at a certain scene halfway through. I’m one of those readers who can read murders but can’t handle it when anything happens to pets. As things get even more harried in town between the various factions, and Lucy is at her wit’s end trying to solve the mystery and keep Toby out of trouble, this one had an exciting finish. And Libby ❤

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader.
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Please see all of my reviews on my blog at https://www.robinlovesreading.com.

Mrs. Prudence Pratt is Lucy Stone’s nemesis. More accurately put, Mrs. Pratt is Kudo’s, the family’s dog, nemesis. Kudos keeps escaping and killing her blue-ribbon chickens. Before the Stone family can correct the matter, Mrs. Pratt will go to any means necessary to have the dog destroyed. As if enough isn’t going on in Tinker’s Cove, there are some trying to cancel the upcoming fireworks display and a colony of nudists, or more accurately referred to, naturists, have descended upon the local pond.

Oh, and let’s not forget the serious concern that the lobster trade might be affected by poachers. As a part-time reporter, Lucy is trying to cover at least one of these stories...well, she would rather leave the naturists to her boss.

Sort of a spoiler here...but each story in this cozy mystery series contains a murder...

Mrs. Pratt is dead. Her manner of death is beyond all doubt a murder. Since Lucy is concerned that the police are looking at her for it, she decides to check into it for herself. Will she be able to locate the murderer without bringing danger to herself?

For a relatively short book, the story is quite busy. There is the requisite family drama, the aforementioned murder, Lucy’s hectic job, and a bit more. This is a nice addition to the series that I have been enjoying thus far. This is a quick read, and despite some serious issues, it is rather light-hearted.

There are twenty-five books in the series thus far, and book twelve is New Year’s Eve Murder.
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A nice little cozy mystery set in Maine. There are lobster fishermen, nudists and prize winning chickens. A little crazy but it all works. The ending came together a little too quickly for me. This is just a relaxing, fun read. ( )