Book Review - What Did You Do Before Dying? (A Marge Chirstensen Mystery Book 1) by Patricia Batta by L. A. Keller

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This is a cozy mystery by an author I have never read. There are a few spoilers in this review so be forewarned.

We meet Marge when she wakes up from a dream not long after her husband has died. The police ruled his death a suicide but Marge was suspicious from the start. Her husband had been acting strangely in the last months before his death and it was only after that she discovered he had a terminal illness.

The mystery unravels slowly but at a good pace.  The first chapter introduces a number of characters, which I always find confusing, but it's not long before you are able to figure out their story function. It caught me off guard when the second chapter began with a different font or font spacing than the first and I found a few typos scattered through the book.

As an older woman myself now (ARGH), I thought Marge seemed older than forty-eight. Before her age was revealed I pictured her in her sixties but perhaps that was part of the growth that she needed to accomplish.

The author drops clues along the way which lead the reader to suspect who committed the crimes but also includes a good number of red herrings so you are never sure until the end.

This was a cute story and I will try a few more in the series to see how the character develops.  It's a good read for light entertainment but I think you may know what happened a few chapters before the end.



Happy Trails,

Leslie

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