The Cottage
By Jo A. Hiestand
GENRE: Mystery (British)
BLURB:
Former police detective Michael McLaren is at the home of his lady friend, Melanie. The house is sold, the removal van is booked. All that is left is to help her pack her belongings for her move to his village. But the laborious task is interrupted when one of Melanie’s neighbors asks McLaren to investigate the circumstances of her parents’ murders. McLaren’s reluctance to take it on and abandon Melanie appears to be solved when his best mate, Jamie, steps in to help with the packing. It’s not the easy investigation McLaren was hoping for, however. Sightings of Mordred and a ghost, and a burglary at the local Tudor Hall complicate the murder inquiries. What had seemed to McLaren a perfect remedy with Jamie close at hand now disintegrates into a horrendous mistake. And McLaren questions if the investigation is really worth it, especially when he puts the people he cares about most in danger.
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Excerpt:
McLaren’s cheeks flooded with color, and he felt his mouth go dry. He was embarrassed as well as honored by Barry’s request, but how could he find such a man? Barry stared at McLaren, that same fear in his eyes, yet with a bit of hope, McLaren thought. Barry’s gaze never wavered, and McLaren placed his hand on the man’s shoulder, squeezing it slightly. “I’ll try, Barry. But I need to know what Mordred looks like. Did you see him well enough so you can tell me? Is his hair dark or light? Is he bigger than I am?” McLaren patted his chest. “If you saw him walk, does he have a limp?” He stopped, not wanting to overwhelm Barry with questions.
“I don’t know. It was night. His light didn’t show him.” The fear was still in his voice, but his grip on McLaren’s arm has lightened somewhat. “You’ll find him. You’ll know when you see him. He’s bad.”
McLaren considered asking another question but thought it best to drop the identification attempt. “And Mordred and the man were at the cave, right? Outside of it?”
Barry nodded. “I was waiting for Pendragon’s horse to come to take me home. That’s why I saw them.”
McLaren blinked. Was the horse one of the cars that dropped Barry off at the kilns? “Did you wait a long time for the horse?”
“All night. It didn’t come until morning. I don’t like being at the cave at night. Too dark. I went where it was safe. I stayed behind a bush after Mordred killed the man.”
My Review:
The Cottage is another book in the McLaren Mystery Series by Jo A Hiestand. The Cottage is only the second book by Jo A Hiestand that I have read and I am still wondering why. The Cottage has more than enough suspense and mystery to have kept me hooked page after page.
It kept me guessing from beginning to end as I raced through each and every page clue after clue trying to turn the pages faster and faster wanting to get to the end to see whodunit but at the same time not wanting it to end.
The descriptions were written so clearly making it very easy to race to the end trying to figure out how all the clues fit together and help to find out who murdered Melanie’s parents. I was very surprised when all the secrets were revealed and the culprits were discovered.
McLaren is busy helping Melanie move closer to him. They want to be able to spend more time together as they wait to see where their relationship is going. One of Melanie’s neighbors asks him to look into her parent’s death. She has never believed what she was told about their deaths. She wants to know the truth about how they died and why.
McLaren wants to take the case but he has already promised Melanie that he would help her move. Melanie is such a good-hearted person. She knows that McLaren wants to take the case as that is just who he is. He likes helping people. Melanie tells McLaren to take the case then he can help her move when he is done. But McLaren calls on his old friend Jamie to come and help Melanie move while he is looking into the case.
I would highly recommend The Cottage to all murder mystery fans! Grab a copy of The Cottage today!
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Jo A. Hiestand grew up on regular doses of music, books, and Girl Scout camping. She gravitated toward writing in her post-high school years and finally did something sensible about it, graduating from Webster University with a BA degree in English and departmental honors. She writes a British mystery series (the McLaren Mysteries)—of which three books have garnered the prestigious N.N. Light’s Book Heaven ‘Best Mystery Novel’ three years straight. She also writes a Missouri-based cozy mystery series that is grounded in places associated with her camping haunts. The camping is a thing of the past, for the most part, but the music stayed with her in the form of playing guitar and harpsichord, and singing in a folk group. Jo carves jack o’ lanterns badly and sings loudly. She loves barbecue sauce and ice cream (separately, not together), kilts (especially if men wear them), clouds and stormy skies, and the music of G.F. Handel. You can usually find her pulling mystery plots out of scenery—whether from photographs or the real thing.
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5 comments:
Thank you so much for reviewing this book today!
Sounds like a good mystery. I like the cover.
Thank you for the review and the stop in my book tour, Avid Reader. I appreciate it.
Marcy, thank you. I hope you like the book if you read it...and I like the cover too! Thanks! :-)
This sounds like a good book.
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