I read this over the weekend and wanted to immediately jump into book #3. I enjoyed the characters from the first book and took to the new characters in this book pretty easily. I do think the recurring characters - the doctor (the new neighbor/medical professional), the newspaper writer (high school friend/investigator/gossip), the lawyer (legal aid/boyfriend), the mother (the leader/foil for main character), etc all play the typical parts that are found in cozy mysteries, yet they all read realistically. And Andrea (MC/sleuth) learned her lesson from the last book and called for back up/had a Plan B before sneaking into a potential threatening situation.
If the structure of the characters remained in the genre's typecast, then the structure of the story was a new twist (at least to this cozy mystery newbie). Rather than having the murder happen immediately in the first couple of chapters, we don't get the murder until Chapter 20. In the lead up, I got a wonderful story and a list of suspects that I really felt I knew -- making the mystery more engrossing. Also, there were a series of mishaps prior to the murder, so there was a plot going on with all the characters.
The one problem I had with the book was the MASSIVE INFODUMPING in the first two chapters. The info was on the relationship between Cissy (mom and socialite to beat all other socialites) and Andrea. If you read book one, you got a good handle on this relationship already; chapter one and two was complete overkill. If this goes on in the next book, I am just going to skip that chapter altogether.
I plan on finishing up two books I am currently reading and hoping to hit book #3 in this series by the end of the week. I really enjoy this author's voice so much I went ahead and pre-ordered the first book in a new series. 4.5/5 stars
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