In this Jaine Austen mystery, set right around Halloween, Jaine gets involved with her eccentric neighbor after a freak accident causes the death of her parakeet (involving Prozac the cat, of course.) Lance and Jaine compete for the attentions of a cute guy, with hilarious results. And of course, there are the emails from Jaine’s parents, which are always a hoot. This time around, Jaine’s father is determined to win the neighborhood’s Halloween lawn decorating competition.

I picked this book because of the cover and that it’s October, perfect for the season. I do enjoy this authors writing style, easy to read and doesn’t contain a lot of excess words to tell the story.
Get to the point but give me a full story I can enjoy, that’s my book motto. I did enjoy Janie Austen she’s funny, quirky and likes to eat. I found myself constantly snacking while reading this book. The bases of the book is the murder of the neighborhood mean ass old woman once known as Cryptessa of a bad knockoff “Munsters” TV show. She was on everyone’s bad side so of course she ends up dead. Who did it? It Could have been anyone from the neighborhood. No, I did not figure out the story early, that always makes for a better mystery book. My only peeve is Lance the so called friend of Janie he is utterly tiring. An obnoxious person who it always tripping Janie up, why keep him as a friend. Other than that one character, which gave me angst, I loved the book and yes I plan on reading more books by Laura Levine.
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as always a stellar writing by Laura with Jaine providing laughs and entertainment along the way. ( )

Review Originally Posted At: FictionForesight

2.5 Stars!

Jaine Austen and her cat, Prozac, live a pretty quiet life. That all changes when the hunk Peter moves in next door and invites her to a Halloween party. Before she can blink, she is suspected of murdering her crotchety old neighbor while at the party. Will she be able to prove her innocence? Or will one blunder after another land her in jail?

This is the first book to make me try to figure out a system for rating what I read. The writing is simplistic and doesn’t contain any real character development. There is a lot of humor, to the point where I would think this is a satire on the genre, but that’s not the intent as far as I know. Unfortunately what starts out as goofy and enjoyable turns into cumbersome repetition of fat jokes and one liners.

I’m not really sure how much Jaine weighs, and you might wonder why that even matters. It matters to me because most of the “jokes” are at Jaine’s expense for eating a lot. From cracks about thunder thighs to emotionally driven eating, the constant reference of being fat is used to such an extreme extent; over and over until it gets so predictable that you know what will be said before the character says it. I just don’t understand why an author would bash their own protagonist like that. Either she is quite large, and that’s sad to see that she has such an unhealthy relationship with food, or she is actually skinny and this is just another book perpetuating the skinny girl culture. Both are very sad premises.

The other annoying factor for me is that Jaine is such a passive protagonist. She never makes anything happen, and allows herself to be manipulated in countless situations with no recourse on those doing it to her. Her “friend,” more like the colloquial “frenemy”, sabotages her at every turn and belittles her every chance he gets. Her other friend is a woman who is about as bad as Lance. She always bids Jaine to meet her at restaurants or meals, and then berates her food choices. It seems like her friends would want to help her or otherwise support her if she were actually overweight, instead of sabotaging her at every turn. I know it seems that I’m hung up on this, but the jokes are about 75 percent of the book.

The mystery itself was pretty straightforward and boring. Someone nabbed her Ape suit at the party and murdered the neighbor, so she had to find out who it was. She actually did try to investigate things, but I wouldn’t say she was very successful. She never finds out who did it, but instead meets the killer in a final stint that ends with their arrest. And then we cycle back to fat jokes.

So if fat jokes and humor that repeats itself after the second chapter doesn’t dampen your Halloween spirit, this isn’t a bad book. I liked it in the beginning but got lost by the end. I think people looking for a lighthearted cozy mystery that focuses on Halloween wouldn’t go wrong with this book.

(www.FictionForesight.com) ( )

It took me forever to start reading this, but once I did I finished it in no time. This was a cute story (if far-fetched) with fun characters. The cat is hysterical! I'm a big fan of twist endings and this did not disappoint. I highly recommend this for anyone looking for a fun Halloween read. ( )