Murder in the First Edition - the third Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery

Time to find a cozy place to curl up and read the third "Beyond the Page Bookstore" mystery by Lauren Elliott.  It's funny how quickly this series and its characters have become a comforting place to visit - like settling down with old friends and hearing all about the latest adventures in their lives.  Only, with Addie Greyborne and the citizens of Greyborne Harbour, it's all about the latest murder in what used to be a quiet little New England town.  (It's almost like Murder, She Wrote - you love Jessica Fletcher, but you really don't want to go anywhere near her, because everyone around her seems to get murdered!)  But, with my love for mysteries and Elliott's fantastic writing, plotting, and characterization, it's a perfect match!

 

Murder in the First Edition is set right at Christmas time, so I guess this was the perfect time for me to read it, what with Christmas just around the corner. With two murders now solved and behind her, Addie is hoping to settle down for a nice, quite holiday. There's still that small matter of Marc being mad at her after saying her dead fiance's name when they kissed ... and her conflicted feelings over Simon, who is showing her all the attention she craves.  But all of that goes to the backburner when Jonathan Hemingway shows up unexpectedly in her bookstore - the father of her now deceased fiance.  A father who had little time for his son, and who Addie has always known to be a bit of a womanizer. Everything suddenly becomes a jumble for poor Addie, and when she stumbles across the body of Teresa Lang at the bottom of the hospital stairs, she once again finds herself in the middle of a tangled mess of a mystery.

Elliott does a superb job of intermingling Addie's past with her fiance and his father with the present, as well as Addie's own indecision about Marc and Simon and how she can possibly have a romance with either one when she is still hung up on her own past.  All of this, plus throw in the murder mystery with all of its suspects (including her own almost-father-in-law!), her ongoing feud with the baker next door, her friendship with Serena, her managing of the bookstore, and her concern for her friend, Catherine, who has developed feelings for Jonathan Hemingway! You'd think with so much going on in this one book, the reader would get confused as things jump from one to another; but Elliott blends the action, romance, mystery, and subterfuge so smoothly, it's like watching a well-written soap opera with a murder mystery for the characters to solve!

As for the mystery itself, it is rather a tricky one. Teresa Lang was heading up the fundraiser at the hospital, and Addie had donated a first edition of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It was going to be a big event for the small town of Greybourne Harbour - until Teresa turns up dead at the bottom of the stairs, smelling of alcohol, and Addie's book is oddly missing from Teresa's office. At first, it appears to simply be an accident, with Teresa having one too many and falling down the stairs. But Addie knows something is wrong. What happened to her book? And is it just a coincidence that her almost-father-in-law shows up in town just before this happens - and he just so happens to know Teresa and had a meeting with her before her untimely death? And how could the fundraising committee be so badly in the red, when the hospital board had been informed by Teresa on many occasions how well funded it was?  And whose lipstick was on the Styrofoam cup left in Teresa's office?  So many unanswered questions, and Addie is not one to rest until she has her answers. Marc warns her repeatedly to stay away from it, and even Simon is not certain there was a murder until he gets the toxicology report back. But Addie has always learned to trust her gut instinct, and this time, she's sure something is wrong.

One thing I have to make a note about, considering what a huge fan of Nancy Drew I am - Elliott manages to squeeze in not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR references to America's favorite teen sleuth into this one book!  On pages 79, 82, 115, and 203, Addie references, is referred to, or is directly called "Nancy Drew" by other characters in the book.  Considering the iconic status of Nancy Drew as the epitome of all female detectives, I would say Addie should take this as a compliment to her amateur sleuthing skills!  (And just in case anyone feels left out, there are two references to Jessica Fletcher in the book as well - but I don't know that I would want to be compared to Ms. Fletcher, as it seems everyone she comes in contact with is murdered!)

I am thrilled this series is still going strong, as the author has indicated she is working on book seven right now!  So that means I have a few more books to read before I get caught up with this series...

RATING:  10 twinkling white fairy lights out of 10 for giving readers an amazing world of characters and a wonderful Christmas mystery that truly is "A Dickens of a crime..."