Well, this book kind of sucked. From the start of the book Suzanne comes across as rude and judgemental, but frankly I find a lot of protagonists in this genre are hyper-critical of other female characters so I let it slide. But she doesn't get better. She harasses people then acts surprised when they don't like her or want to talk to her. She has absolutely no business investigating, since the police seem to be doing a perfectly fine job.

At the end the police have already narrowed it down to the same two people Suzanne has. Both are planning to leave town, but given that they're the prime suspects it seems unlikely the police would just shrug their shoulders and say "oh well" and give up on their suspects like that.

Suzanne seems to think she needs to meddle because the chief of police is stupid and she is a suspect, despite the fact that he appears no dimmer than Suzanne (to be fair that is pretty dim) and makes no serious attempt to investigate her. There's all sorts of random crap that adds nothing to the story. What was the point of those random birdwatchers? The mysterious stranger? Why did I need to hear about Suzanne's mother's favourite television programme?

This is the only one in the series I've read, so maybe if I'd read the first one I'd find Suzanne less of an obnoxious, judgemental idiot. On the other hand, maybe the whole series is poorly-written with flimsy, one-dimensional characters and stilted, unnatural dialogue. Who knows.

Also this book contains a recipe for deep-fried cake. I already dislike random recipes in novels, the authors could at least include ones that aren't incredibly disgusting. Gosh.