A review by saranel81
Mulch Ado About Murder by Edith Maxwell

2.0

2.5 stars. I have enjoyed the other four books in this series - Maxwell does a great job creating characters, describing Cam's daily life, and establishing a strong sense of setting. But there was almost TOO much of all that this time around. The plot seemed non-existent, and the mystery meanders around, lost instead amidst a lot of padding involving all of those characters Maxwell has created for Cam to interact with. So many characters. It just felt like overkill. The mystery doesn't get any real attention until the second half of the book. The first half is too occupied with all the side characters and what they're doing in their lives. Which is fine if that's what you're looking for, but I'm more interested in the mystery, personally. And it was just okay and more predictable than I like. I'm also not a fan of suspects outing themselves as the killer - I want the sleuth to figure it out and do the confronting, but again, that's just my preference.

Also, I felt the dialogue was not as good as it usually is, maybe because there were so many scenes of Cam chit-chatting with her friends that didn't really add to the plot? Cam's friend Lucinda was the only side character that stood out, everyone else kind of blended together.