HEARTACHE MOTEL - Terri L. Austin, Larissa Reinhart, LynDee Walker


 Take one fleabag motel and have three cozy mystery authors bring their regular characters into that motel and you get three novellas loosely tied together.

In "Diners Keepers, Losers Weepers" by Terri L. Austin, it is just before Christmas and Rose Strickland and friends are planning a visit to Graceland. Their planned accommodations fall through and they are forced to take a room in the seedy "Heartache Motel." At this motel an Elvis impersonator is found dead and some missing jewels may hold the key to solving the murder.  But can Rose solve the murder, visit Graceland (a life-long desire) and still get home before Christmas?

"Quick Sketch" by Larissa Reinhart is a Cherry Tucker mystery. Cherry and her boyfriend head to Memphis to help out a cousin who's been hustled and taken for his entire life savings just before Christmas.  Cherry isn't much of a gambler herself and her boyfriend Todd loves poker but isn't meant for the big-time. Because everything's booked up right before Christmas, they have to room in the run-down Heartache Motel.  Can Cherry and her boyfriend catch the gambling crooks in a sting, or will they get stung themselves?

Finally, in "Dateline Memphis" by LynDee Walker, crime reporter Nichelle Clarke stops at the motel at Christmas to try and catch a scoop on a major crime story.  She winds up locked inside Elvis' mansion where she alternately is trying to track down criminals while avoiding becoming a target herself.

I was not familiar with any of these authors or their series' prior to reading this. I found each of the stories generally well-written and interesting.  I think Terri Austin's was most engaging.  Perhaps that was a function of being first in the book but I thought the reason for being stuck in the Heartache Motel was more clearly defined here and the action of the mystery took place in and around the motel more than the later stories (and the book is titled for the motel after all).

I suspect that if I was already familiar with one or more of these characters, this would have been much more interesting to me. As an introduction to the characters, this doesn't really have strong appeal - I'm not immediately looking to read more by any one of these authors.  Conversely, it doesn't turn me off either.  If I should happen to pick up a mystery in one of these series' I'm likely to remember the character(s) and be glad for a little prior introduction to them.

If you happen to like cozy mysteries then this is a nice little beach-read collection.

Looking for a good book? Heartache Motel is a collection of three novellas by Terri L. Austin, Larissa Reinhart, and LynDee Walker. Fans of their books and signature characters will be glad to read a new little mystery from these authors.  New readers may not be given the best introduction to these series'.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

3 stars

* * * * * *

Heartache Motel

authors: Terri L. Austin, Larissa Reinhart, LynDee Walker 

series: Rose Strickland Mystery, #3.5; Cherry Tucker Mystery, #.5; Nichelle Clarke Crime Thriller, #2.5

publisher: Henery Press

ISBN: 1938383915

paperback, 225 pages

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

VINYL RESTING PLACE - Olivia Blacke

Image
 Juni Jessup and her two sister, Tansy and Maggie, have gone into business together in their hometown of Cedar River, Texas, opening a combination record store and coffee shop. Vinyl LPs are making a comeback after all, despite critics thinking the medium was dead.  But speaking of 'dead' ... finding a dead body in the supply closet just as they are looking to have a grand opening is not part of the plan.  Juni's life gets more complicated when their uncle, Calvin, already a suspect in the murder, disappears. And the police officer leading the investigation is Juni's EX-boyfriend (who passive-aggressively keeps putting himself back into her life). Convinced that her uncle would never murder anyone, Juni sets out to prove his innocence - which isn't easy since he's making himself look guilty - because Calvin is family and family is EVERYthing to Juni. As readers of my blog know, I'm not a big fan of most cozy mysteries, but the setting caught my eye and my in...
Read more

THE WALLED CITY - Ryan Graudin

Image
  Jin and her sister, Mei Yee, were taken and sold and then sent to the lawless Walled City to serve as prostitutes or slaves to anyone willing to pay. Jin managed to escape her captivity, but not the Walled City and she now lurks about, disguised as a boy and is trying to track down the brothel where her sister is still captive. Jin will work odd delivery jobs to earn a small bit of money and hopefully have a legitimate means of coming in contact with her sister's captors.  This is how she meets up with Dai, a mysterious boy who has somehow managed to avoid running with any of the gangs in the city but he seems to have his own unusual connections, which Jon could desperately use if she has any hope of finding Mei Yee. But Dai has his own desperate needs.  The story is told from the different perspectives of each character and we do bounce around quite a bit as the chapters are generally short. This never bothered me, which is slightly unusual as often I find this techni...
Read more

THE RAVEN THIEF - Gigi Pandian

Image
 With Tempest Raj now a member of the company, Secret Staircase Construction (a company who, as their title suggests, builds mystery-themed, secret rooms inside homes) has finished their first job. Their client now wants to celebrate to kick off her new beginning - new home and new life now that she's divorced from her cheating ex-husband, famous mystery author Corbin Colt. First up, a mock séance to remove any trace of Corbin from the property, led by Tempest's friend, Sanjay.   But during that séance, while all those gathered sat in a dark room holding hands, Corbin's dead body crashes the party, falling across the table in front of everyone. There were eight people in the room, and they were all holding hands, but all the evidence points to one of them being the murderer.  Suspicions point to Ash, Tempest's grandfather, because he was the only one with Corbin's blood on him. Of course, as a doctor, he was also the only one who checked on the body - ...
Read more