Friday, October 7, 2016

Blog Tour: The Book Club Murders by Leslie Nagel (Review)

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About the Book

Genre: Cozy Mystery, #1 The Oakwood Mystery Series
New Series
Publisher: Alibi (September 27, 2016)
224 Pages
E-Book ASIN: B01A4ATX9E



Synopsis from Goodreads:

In a charming cozy mystery series debut, Leslie Nagel’s irrepressible small-town heroine finds that her fellow mystery book club members may be taking their Agatha Christie a bit too literally—and murder a bit too lightly.

Charley Carpenter has poured heart and soul into her clothing store, Old Hat Vintage Fashions. She’ll do anything to make it a success—even join the stuffy Agathas Book Club in order to cultivate customers among Oakwood, Ohio’s wealthy elite.

Although mixing with the most influential women in town has its advantages, Charley finds the endless gossip a high price to pay. But after two women with close ties to the Agathas are brutally murdered, everyone falls under threat—and suspicion. When key evidence indicates that both murders are the work of the same hand, Charley realizes that the killer has arranged each corpse in perfect imitation of crime scenes from the Club’s murder mystery reading list. She uses her membership in the Club to convince Detective Marcus Trenault to use her as an inside informant. Not that he could stop her anyway.

Intelligent, fearless, and every bit as stubborn as Marc is, Charley soon learns the Agathas aren’t the only ones with secrets to protect. Passions explode as she and Marc must race against time to prevent another murder. And if Charley’s not careful, she may find herself becoming the killer’s next plot twist.

My Review

I always enjoy getting in on the ground floor of a new series and this one gets off to a great start. As soon as I saw this series involved a mystery book club, I knew I would have fun with it and I did.

The main character, Charley Carpenter, is a strong character who finds herself in the middle of a real life murder mystery. Her reading group calls themselves the Agathas after one of the most famous mystery authors, Agatha Christie. It’s not long before Charley realizes there is a serial killer out there and they are copying the murders from the Agatha’s reading discussion books.

With Charley’s knowledge of the mystery books, she convinces the lead Detective Marcus Trenault to allow her to help with the murder investigations. As the investigation proceeds, the sparks between Charley and Marc fly, but can they stop the killer before anyone else winds up dead?

The author provides a wide array of suspects and she keeps you guessing. She also provides the reader with an eccentric cast of characters that come to life on each page.

This book is more than a cozy mystery. It’s a romantic suspense and cozy mystery combo. Traditionally cozy mysteries are sweet…no violence, no sex and no foul language. While this book doesn’t have strong violence or sex, there is some language that might bother some. I was okay with it and it fit into the story, but I thought I’d mention it in case some are bothered by that kind of thing.

Overall, a well crafted murder mystery to keep readers thinking. Charley is a heroine readers will love and want to read more about. I know I do. I’m looking forward to more books in this new series.



For reading challenges:
NetGalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2016

FTC Disclosure: The author and NetGalley provided me with a copy of this book to review for this blog tour. This did not influence my thoughts and opinions in any way. All opinions expressed are my own.




About the Author


Leslie Nagel is a writer and teacher of writing at a local community college. Her debut novel, “The Book Club Murders”, is the first in the Oakwood Mystery Series. Leslie lives in the all too real city of Oakwood, Ohio, where murders are rare but great stories lie thick on the ground. After the written word, her passions include her husband, her son and daughter, hiking, tennis and strong black coffee, not necessarily in that order.
 Author Links
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