4 out of 4 stars
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Secrets, Lies, and Homicide by Patricia Dusenbury is a mystery about the discovery of a murder committed twenty-five years ago and two more murders committed after that discovery. Claire Marshall is a young widow who co-owns a home restoration service in New Orleans. She takes on a client, Tony Burke, a famous race car driver, and they begin to work on plans to restore his childhood home in New Orleans. Tony’s mother is living in an Assisted Living facility and Tony has a difficult, estranged relationship with his mother. Still, he agrees to have Claire visit his mother to find out more about what the original kitchen looked like and other original house details. When Claire and Tony go back to the house to open his deceased father’s sealed art studio behind the house, Tony sees his childhood toy chest and breaks it open, only to find skeletal bones inside. They call the police and Tony goes to the Assisted Living facility, accusing his mother of killing his father years ago, even though everyone had been told that his father died in a car accident during Hurricane Camille. Another murder occurs the next day, and I don’t want to give any spoilers beyond that.
I loved this book. If I wasn’t sick with the flu for the past few days, I would have read it in one day since it was so absorbing. The book is very plot-driven and there is a nice pacing to the storyline. The plot is excellent and goes off in a few directions, while still moving forward and keeping the reader thoroughly absorbed. The characters are all interesting, even the minor ones. I felt like I knew these people based on the author’s characterizations. You do get a sense of the New Orleans setting, but it’s not so overly done that it takes away from the storyline. Some mysteries are too caught up in descriptions of setting, where it drags the pacing of the story; this is not the case here. Everything moves along seamlessly.
I particularly liked that each chapter was relatively short; it kept the story moving along at a quick pace. I couldn’t put this book down and wanted to know what was going to happen next. It’s not one of these mysteries where you can figure out early on in the story who committed the crime. There were a few twists in the plot regarding the motives for the murders, and the reader is taken on a satisfying mystery ride right to the very end.
My criticisms of the book are few and do not affect my high rating. In my opinion, Claire and Tony’s romance occurring about halfway through the story was an unwelcome distraction. She was his contractor and jumping into bed with him after knowing him such a short time made the book veer a bit into chick-lit/romance territory. This book is an excellent mystery novel and I didn’t want the book to be anything less than that. If the characters had remained just friends for most of the book, I think the mystery would have completely taken center stage, although for the most part it did.
There were a few spelling and grammatical errors in the book (the word very instead of every, a period missing, a sentence that didn’t make sense so something was missing). Overall, the errors were minor.
I rate this book 4 out of 4 stars. This book is just a gem and I highly recommend it. Whether mysteries are your favorite genre or you just want to read a page-turner, this book is a must-read. After finishing the book, I read the “About the Author” page and was happy to discover that this book is the second in a trilogy about Claire Marshall. I now have another book to add to my reading list!
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Secrets, Lies and Homicide
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