{"id":2839,"date":"2011-01-03T09:31:24","date_gmt":"2011-01-03T14:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danversreads.wordpress.com\/?p=2839"},"modified":"2011-01-03T09:31:24","modified_gmt":"2011-01-03T14:31:24","slug":"scoop-to-kill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/?p=2839","title":{"rendered":"Scoop to Kill – Wendy Lyn Watson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Publisher’s summary:
\n“During the local college’s annual Honor’s Day festivities, a graduate student is killed. When the English professor suspected of his murder also meets an untimely end, Tallulah Jones steps out from behind the counter of Remember the a-la-Mode to clear the professor’s name-before anyone else gets put on ice…”<\/em><\/p>\n

Scoop to Kill<\/em><\/a> is the second book in Watson\u2019s Mystery a la Mode series featuring Tallulah Jones, though I didn\u2019t clue into that fact until I was nearly done with it. My oblivion proves one thing: Watson did an admirable job of inserting enough background to quickly catch you up with the characters and the series\u2019 premise. If you like cozy mysteries, but are a stickler for adhering to release order, you\u2019ll want to begin with book one, I Scream, You Scream<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Want to know why I\u2019ll be reading the third book in this series? Because I don\u2019t know whose hand was squeezed. And I need to. I\u2019m sorely tired of love triangles, but in this case it was underplayed and never overshadowed the mystery. Because of that, I have to know who Tally chooses: Cal, the steady as a rock police detective, or Finn, her first and still a little wild love.<\/p>\n

Tally was a sweet protagonist, willing to do anything (and I do mean go above and beyond) for her family, well-mannered and unfailingly polite, but I didn\u2019t click with her in the same way that I have with other amateur sleuths. Because she didn\u2019t thoroughly engage me, my attention wavered every now and again. It didn\u2019t help that I found myself frustrated with some of the characters, namely Tally\u2019s cousin, Bree, and her niece, Alice; thought the discrepancy in how people \u2013 and by people I mean family vs. non-family \u2013 perceived the victim could have been further explored; and thought the pacing dragged in spots. I also would have loved a little more behind the scenes action in Tally\u2019s ice cream shop; there were a few mentions of sundaes, shakes, and the French Pot method of making ice cream, but there\u2019s always room for more, right?<\/p>\n

I love cozies because, no matter the issues I have with them, they are always light, fun, and perfectly good company for a few hours. Scoop to Kill<\/em> mostly fit that bill and, as I mentioned previously, I\u2019ll give the third book, A Parfait Murder<\/em><\/a>, a go when it\u2019s released next June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Publisher’s summary: “During the local college’s annual Honor’s Day festivities, a graduate student is killed. When the English professor suspected of his murder also meets an untimely end, Tallulah Jones steps out from behind the counter of Remember the a-la-Mode to clear the professor’s name-before anyone else gets put on ice…” Scoop to Kill is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cozy","category-mystery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6V6sR-JN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}