Murder on a Mystery Tour

I did enjoy this book quite a bit - which was a nice surprise, considering I picked it out randomly, without even looking at it on Goodreads. The fact is, though, that it hit two very major things that I love. The first is the house party that gets snowed in and cut off from the rest of the world. The second is the (pretend) murder weekend that turns into a real murder weekend. Those are two things I love, love, love in mystery books.

There only two reasons that this book isn't getting four stars from me - and they could have been remedied the same way.

My first problem is that no one is described, I don't know anything about these characters and, until past the halfway point, I didn't even know two secondary characters were married. The second problem I had was that the book was already more than half over (also) before the first real murder took place.

Both problems could have been solved by increasing the length of the book. Honestly, with the huge cast of characters, three fake deaths and two real ones, the mystery party seen through ‘til the end and the break from reality at least one (and likely two) characters had, this book could easily have been double the length it was. That would have also allowed the characters and the story - especially the ending which was barely wrapped up in one chapter - to breathe.

I did enjoy this book, but I don't know that I'll be reading any more by this author.