“The Alpine Christimas,” by Mary Daheim

FM's ratings:

1. Premise 7
2. Prose 8
3. Plot 7
4. Characters 8
5. Overall 8

Comments (optional - but try to keep it under 3000 words!

This is the third in an alphabet series, beginning with "The Alpine Advocate" and "The Alpine Betrayal." For me, it falls a little short of the first two, possibly because I'm already getting jaded on the setting and the characters - although I really do like both - or possibly because it's a Christmas-themed mystery and that gets in the way somehow. Still, I rate it an "8" overall, which is pretty good. I'm just not as excited about returning the series as I was before. The discovering of who is committing the murders - chopping up prostitutes from far away Seattle and tossing them in the river near Alpine - is not made by slowly compiling clues until they form a picture, but by poking at the problem from all directions until something pops loose. I'm fine with either approach in a murder mystery, but there is more "false lead" action here than usual. The love interest in the relationships is just now starting to get a bit tedious. If this was a "for women" type of book, that would be understandable, but it's not, really. It's solid mystery-writing without any sense of pandering to a demographic. I will probably read more of the books in this series, but with all the superb authors I have been discovering the past year or so, it may be a while.

Here’s the January line-up!

"Dead Ever After," by Charlaine Harris [1-6-18]

"Tripwire," by Lee Child [1-13-18]

"Imajica," by Clive Barker [1-20-18]
"Death of Yesterday," by M. C. Beaton [1-27-18]