Molly Masters moves back to her childhood home to find a teacher she had victimised had died.Then she receives a threatening email and another dead body turns up. ( )

Molly Masters, wife, mother of 2 younger children is trying to get her ecard business off the ground. Husband is off on a temporary work assignment, and she's spending the year in her parents home in Albany, where she grew up.

Death threats, murder, old friends (and enemies) take us on a fun ride.

I've set this one up in my Kindle to pursue the series. ( )

This book was definitely disjointed- which makes sense, since apparently it's a re-write of an earlier novel, attempting (semi-successfully) to bring the tech more up-to-date.

However, the plot was also somewhat random and disjointed, as were the characters. The behavior of the kids involved varied wildly in terms of age, as did the way their parents treated them. Like, I would say even running next door would be Right Out if one were leaving a 5 and a 7 year old at home with only each other. The adults' behavior is also often arbitrary, and that's a real problem for a plot that focuses mostly on character, past and present.

I do not plan on reading more in this series, or by this author. ( )

The book is squarely at the cosy end of the spectrum. Its amateur sleuth is Molly Masters. Molly returns to her home town in New York with her two young children while her husband is posted overseas for work. Soon after arriving an old teacher writes asking her to visit but before Molly can do so the woman is found dead. And Molly starts receiving electronic threats. She is soon embroiled in trying to work out who wants her gone and whether or not the same person murdered her old teacher.

Molly makes her living as a creator of eCards which is the first thing about this book I found a bit difficult to swallow. Like many aspects of the book it is almost believable but not quite there. Surely someone with cartooning skills would be branching out a bit beyond just doing cards? There are other plot contrivances in which the internet seems like a brand new discovery which are plain awkward for a book released in 2013 but make more sense when you know that this book is a re-write of a title originally released in 1996 as DEATH AND FAXES. I remain unconvinced that this kind of updating is what publishing needs but I guess I’m not trying to make a living as a writer so I shouldn’t judge too harshly. Still, it didn’t feel entirely complete (one of Molly’s clients asks for her to design something to help them sell fax machines for pity’s sake and she seems never to have heard of Dropbox for example). The overall plot held together well enough though I thought the culprit fairly easy to spot.

For cosy mysteries to work – for me anyway – the characters have to engage and that didn’t quite happen here. Molly is likable enough as the main protagonist – and I enjoyed the humour injected into her personality via the descriptions of the cartoons she designed – but the rest of the cast are entirely forgettable. To the point that it’s only 3 days after I finished the book now and I’d have to open it to remind myself of any of their names. There’s the best friend next door. The high school arch nemesis. The good but boring guy who’s become the local copper. Collectively I suppose they show some insight into the juxtaposition of our teenage and adult selves but I have to admit I am not a big one for that kind of reminiscing so perhaps I am not the target market for a story with that focus.

In short, the book was good enough to keep me reading to the end but not good enough to prompt me to search out later titles.