Vicky Hill is a junior reporter who mostly covers funerals in the small town of Gripping. A local man is murdered and Vicky decides to investigate his death to get a scoop for the paper. Vicky is incredibly annoying. She jumps to the most random conclusions given no evidence to support her ideas. She is also obsessed with losing her virginity and with the few single men in Gripping. The so0lution to the mystery comes out of nowhere. ( )

I really had to work to finish this book. Vicky is a "new" reporter at a small town newspaper in a small village in England. She is determined she will be a great reporter as soon as she gets her "big break". The problem I had with this was that she took every single thing she heard and decided it was a huge conspiracy. I think at one time or another she suspected every single person she met and/or worked with as being involved in something nefarious.

However, even as she suspected everyone she allowed herself to be alone with, get in cars with, or make "secret" appointments with all of them. This settled high on my TSTL meter and I was forcing myself to finish the book.

I'm hoping the series gets better and Vicky learns more of her craft and a sense of self-preservation. I've got several of the books in my towering to-be-read pile but I think it will be a while before I try the next, even though I've heard good things about later books. ( )

This is the first of the Vicky Hill series. I liked Vicky. She's spunky and has a Walter Mitty outlook on her investigative reporting. She's funny as she imagines the headlines for her front page scoops only to find out she's wrong on those scoops. As she tracks down who is murdering whom and why she gets into all kinds of scrapes. While I could not stand Annabel, I like that Vicky has a rival for that front page scoop. It makes it all the sweeter when Vicky can best Annabel. I want to know more about Vicky's parents and see if she can find romance and lose her virginity. If the rest of the series is as fun, it's going to be a good run. ( )

I did not enjoy this book. I really disliked all of the characters, and the plot itself was not to my liking. The book did get a little better at the very end, but it did not improve to a point that I would ever read another book by this author. How can a character who grew up in a criminal family be as gullible as the central character? It was very easy for me to put this book down after reading one short chapter (some as short as 2 pages). The story just didn't draw me in. ( )

This book is fantastic! I was a little worried when my husband brought it home for me to read, but it's a page turner. Full of laughs. ( )