“‘It’s the difference between life and death.’”
In order to pay for my book reading habits, I’ve worked in public relations/marketing for the past year or so now. It’s a job that’s less glamorous than it seems—just think of all the usual woes that come with working a client-facing job and you’ll understand what I mean.
In #FollowMe for Murder, the job becomes infinitely less glamorous when branding consultant Cordelia “Coco” Cline finds a dead body in her client’s yet-to-be-opened secondhand store. With no leads and under threat of being defunded, the police just aren’t moving fast enough for Once Used, Twice Buy to open in time. That is unless Cline can crack open the case herself.
Now, I’ve done the marketing thing and the journalism thing too, and I’ll be the first to admit I am in no way qualified to solve any kind of murder. The only thing I have going for me is my love for murder mysteries. I guess Cline must have missed the memo. But where would we be if we stuck to our job descriptions? For what it’s worth, Cline at least has the legwork down; in between trying to reschedule her clients’ grand opening and managing their social media, she’s knocking on doors and talking to the victim’s loved ones to catch the killer.
The mystery here is a pretty-straightforward one with few twists and turns, to the point where even I was able to guess the murderer’s identity midway through. #FollowMe for Murder would have benefitted from throwing more obstacles Cline’s way; let’s give her a red herring or two, a problem that can’t be solved by simply calling in a friend or her boyfriend.
With Cline being bang on the money every time, I was frankly a little bored at how easy the mystery was. There were no great jumps of logic that had to be made, just some groundwork. Maybe the police should be defunded after all, if they couldn’t figure this out on their own.
But maybe I’m a little too used to my Poirot, my Kindaichi, my Ryeland. #FollowMe for Murder is an easy read for anyone looking for a palette cleanser between books, a light-hearted—or as light-hearted as you can be with a body count—mystery for those who maybe need a handheld introduction to the genre.
Rating: 3/5
#FollowMe for Murder by Sarah E. Burr is published by Level Best Books and was released 15 Feb.