When Holly Love decides to hunt down Andrew McNish, the fiancé who disappeared under mysterious circumstances and took all of her savings with him, she doesn’t realise that it’s the first step on a madcap ride that will lead her to an eccentric little town in the Blue Mountains, or that she will end up accidentally posing as a private investigator while sharing living space with a psychic, a sweet-natured elderly phone s-x worker and a parrot. Or that her hunt for Andrew might turn into a real murder investigation. Holly’s out of her depth—or, just possibly, she’s finally finding her feet. Jennifer Rowe’s previous mysteries include the Verity Birdwood series, and she is also the author of children’s fiction under the names Emily Rodda and Mary-Anne Dickinson. This book is an endearing and highly enjoyable example of the cast-of-quirky-characters mystery. The beginning is a little slow, with a drab, real-world feeling while Holly deals with Andrew’s betrayal, but once the other characters begin to be introduced, the pace and style pick up quickly. The Blue Mountains setting is a highlight, and gives the book a wonderfully real and fresh feeling.
Jarrah Moore is a short-story writer and an editorial assistant at Cengage Learning. This review first appeared in the May issue of Bookseller+Publisher magazine.
| Tweet |
Tags: A&U, Jennifer Rowe, Love Honour and O'Brien
