A Review: Twelve to Murder

I wanted to give you all a sneak peak of the cover of my new book that comes out in April, but unfortunately I don’t have the cover art yet. So stay tuned! Maybe next week.

It’s been a while since I reviewed a book on my blog, so I want to do that today. Twelve to Murder by Lauren Carr is the seventh book in the Mac Faraday series. It’s the first one I’ve read, but I intend to read the rest as soon as I make a dent in my to-be-read pile. I won a copy of the book and promised that I would give an honest review of it.

Lauren Carr is a very good storyteller. Her mystery starts with the discovery of two dead bodies, a husband and wife, in their home on the shore of Deep Creek Lake, Maryland. The couple is discovered by their son, who quickly becomes a suspect in their deaths. But he’s not the only suspect, and the clues and bodies and persons of interest continue to pile up right until the end of the story, when the twists and turns iron themselves out into a very satisfying conclusion.

Mac Faraday is a retired detective who has come to Deep Creek Lake to live following his divorce and the death of his birth mother, a world-famous mystery author. Upon her death, Mac inherited a huge fortune from her as well as her estate on Deep Creek Lake. Mac’s trusty sidekick is a German Shepherd, Gnarly, who is also retired from service, though Gnarly served the U.S. Army, not a police force. Both Mac and Gnarly have love interests in the book, and both are charming and entertaining. Mac’s lady love is Archie Monday, who was the research assistant to the author who gave birth to Mac; Gnarly’s lady love is Molly, a white German Shepherd who is trained to detect and warn her master of impending seizures.

The story centers around Lenny Frost, a washed-up actor who was a big star as a child and teen and who sank into drug abuse and alcoholism as an adult. The woman who is discovered dead as the story opens was Lenny’s agent, mother of Lenny’s former best friend, and the owner of the comedy club where Lenny appears regularly, mostly in front of audiences who do not find him all that funny. When the dead couple is discovered, it’s Lenny’s name that’s written in the wife’s blood at the crime scene. Did Lenny do it? Or was he framed? Lenny swears he’s been framed, and to “prove” it, he takes a number of bar patrons hostage and threatens to kill them if the real killer isn’t caught by midnight.

I really enjoyed this book. I found the plot to be sophisticated and fast-moving, with realistic dialogue and clues that kept me guessing until the end. The romance, to me, was secondary to the mystery and that’s the way I like it. And the story is timely, too. With all that’s been in the news lately about former child stars, this story makes the reader think about many such kids and how their lives don’t always reflect the promise they held as children.

I recommend Twelve to Murder to anyone who likes a good mystery paired with a little romance and fun. Four stars!