In V.M. Burns’s third Mystery Bookshop Mystery, The Novel Art of Murder, Nana Jo is devastated not to be given her usual lead part in the Shady Acres Senior Follies. She gets even more upset to learn that the part has been given to Maria Romanov, a new resident of Shady Acres who claims all sorts of false things about herself to get attention. When Nana Jo hears Maria sing, she learns that her rival cannot hold a tune and gets even more furious at having been dropped from the part for this inept performer. But then Samantha Washington, Nana Jo’s granddaughter and the narrator of the book, gets a call at 3 a.m. from Nana Jo that Maria is dead and the detective thinks she committed the murder.
Sam and her team of senior citizens and college students get on the case and determine to solve the murder themselves. They have learned that the detective, whom Nana Jo calls Stinky Pitt, a nickname from his days as her 3rd grade student, is under pressure to make an arrest. They quickly discover that Maria has a false identity and has been blackmailing several members of their senior community. Suddenly, the suspect list increases from one, Nana Jo, to many. Each member of the investigative team works her or his sources to find out as much as possible about the people connected to Maria in order to locate the killer before Stinky Pitt puts Nana Jo in jail.
I really enjoy this series, and The Novel Art of Murder met all my expectations, which the previous two books raised high. I love the characters, the plot, and the internal mystery set in 1938 that Sam writes. The mystery by Sam parallels the real mystery, and she ends up writing frantically in the hopes that her writing will reveal the answer to her. The characters in this book add a lot of flavor to the story, with flamboyant senior citizens, a potential romance for Sam, and a set of intelligent and eager college students.
I loved getting to read The Novel Art of Murder. The book contained all one could desire: a contemporary mystery, a historical mystery, a budding romance, wacky senior citizen vigilantes, and of course poodles. I give this book five stars!
