In Marriage Vow Murder by Leslie Langtry, it’s the night before Merry Wrath’s wedding, and when she her best friend, Kelly, show up to decorate the church, they find a man sitting in the front pew with a knife through his heart. That’s no surprise, since Merry is always surrounded by dead bodies. But what is a surprise is that her groom, Detective Rex Ferguson, fails to show up for the investigation or the wedding rehearsal. Then they find a riddle as the dead man is carried out of the church, and it sends them all over the small town of Who’s There, Iowa as the bodies pile up.
I found that Marriage Vow Murder has a different tone to it from the previous books in the series. It is much darker, with less humor. Much of the humor of the other books surrounds great characters who make us laugh as they behave in their normal-for-them fashion. However, besides Kevin-the-paste-eater who grew up to be an anything-eater idiot police officer, the quirkier characters don’t show up very often. Furthermore, they don’t do much to contribute to lightening up this book. We especially miss getting to see very much of the girl scouts, though Betty, the spy in training, does have a couple of really great moments.
The lack of the comic relief from the characters causes the plot to become more intense than in other books, although Marriage Vow Murder still qualifies easily as a cozy mystery. The need to solve the riddles also adds in a creative element and provides for the introduction of an endearing new character: Merry’s fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Linda Willard, who is great at solving puzzles and promises to be a great addition to future books in the series.
Even though Marriage Vow Murder was more intense and less humorous than the previous books, appealing less to my taste than the others, I still had a fun time reading this book. If you haven’t read the previous books in the series, I’d recommend starting with them first because this one goes back over Merry’s past a lot as she tries to solve the riddles, but anyone can enjoy it immensely. I give it four stars.
