By Kelly Bridgewater
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Cover Copy:
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| From Amazon |
As
Christmas 1946 draws near, thirty-something marine officer-turned-homicide
detective Lane Walker has his hands full. Three men with seemingly no
relationship to each other have been murdered, including the powerful District
Attorney. The only connection between the crimes? The weapons: twenty-year-old
unopened fruitcake tins manufactured by a company that is no longer in
business.
While some foods may be to die for, fruitcake isn't one
of them! This heaping helping of murder will be no easy task for Walker, and he
certainly doesn't need the determined and feisty Betsy Clayton, the political
reporter for The Chicago
Herald, getting in the way.
My
Thoughts:
Personally, I have never read anything
from Ace Collins. I have heard of his mystery books, but I have never gotten
around to fitting them into my crazy to-be-read pile. After reading The
Fruitcake Murders, I am glad that I did finally read something of his. Collins
story features everything a great mystery should have. A daring cop. A nosy
reporter. A love triangle. And three dead bodies with the ties to the mob.
The mystery centers around a fruitcake
tin. No one I know will even eat the stuff, so I thought it was neat for
Collins to create a complete mystery that deals with a fruitcake tin. The
mystery is a interesting and has many different layers to it. I couldn’t wait
to find out who the bad guy was. There were moments of me wanting to read
faster so that I could figure out who done it. Just when I think that Tiffany,
Lane, or Bret Garner would solve the mystery something awful would happen and
change my perspective. Collins does a great job at hiding the identity of the villain
until the last moment. I was surprised.
I really empathized with Tiffany, the
reporter who wanted nothing more than to be loved and make her name known in
the news reporter world. What person now days doesn’t want to succeed at their
chosen profession? I completely related with her. On the other hand, Lane and Bret Garner also
wanted to succeed in their missions to help Tiffany solve the two crimes. But
along the way, both of them believe they are falling in love with Tiffany. Don’t
be threaten by my last sentence, there really isn’t any of the gushy romance
stuff that happens in romance books. The story handles the mystery for the most
part.
The plot of the novel takes place in
1946. Christmas 1946 to be more accurate. I felt the biting wind across my
cheek as Tiffany ran through the snow to be free of the bad men chasing her. I
got nostalgic as I pictured the holiday decorations and lights in the store
windows (it is my favorite time of the year). But I had a hard time believing
the story took place in 1946. As for the historical accuracy of the time period,
I think it should have had a little more attention to detail. This story could
have happened in the middle of the fifties during the age of decents where
everyone wanted to have the new and latest things. It doesn’t take away from
the mystery; I still completely enjoyed it.
I received a complimentary copy of The Fruitcake Murders from Abingdon
Press and the opinions stated are all my own.
My
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
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