I doubt if I would have even known about this series had it not been chosen by a Facebook book club for discussing this weekend. I’m glad I found out about it but I think I would like to start it from the beginning. This is the fifteenth in the Susan Henshaw series by Valerie Wolzien. The book club theme was vacation or travel so I’m assuming that’s why our leader chose it. I really enjoyed it a lot!
My Goodreads review:
Death in a Beach Chair by Valerie Wolzien
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was a very quick and fun summer read, set on a gorgeous Caribbean island resort. Even though I had never heard of the series or author before one of the online book clubs chose it for this weekend’s discussion, I felt like I knew the four main characters fairly well not too far into the book. It’s an older series but now I think I’d like to read more in it. It was well-written and moved at a good pace. I got a kick out of the bridge-playing older couples, they were hilarious at times.
This book had the two main couples, Susan and Jed Henshaw and Jerry and Kathleen Gordon, who happened to be best friends, going to the Caribbean, escaping a Connecticut winter for some much-needed rest and relaxation. When one of the resort guests was murdered, Jerry was taken in as the only suspect since it turned out that the victim was his deceased wife’s sister, Allison. Since Susan had a reputation for solving mysteries in her hometown, it didn’t take long for word to get around that maybe she could help–along with some other Miss Marple wannabes staying at the resort giving her their helpful observations about the victim, who had apparently been there awhile.
There were some good plot twists and it became apparent to Susan and Kathleen that someone didn’t want Jerry not to be accused of the murder. The solution was a pretty awesome twist that I never really saw coming. I did like that there wasn’t an actual showdown with the killer, just Susan saying she knew who the killer was, then flash forward 24 hours to a little casual answer session held by Susan at the resort for the people she’d gotten to know from asking around about Allison. Now the Henshaws and Gordons could relax and enjoy the rest of their tropical vacation!
Cuddle Up With a Cozy Mystery 