The first in a cozy mystery series from Maggie King, Murder at the Book Group focuses on an author named Hazel Rose who belongs to a mystery book group along with her ex-husband's new wife, who just happens to die at one of the meetings. Although there's a suicide note, Hazel and many of the others don't believe Carlene would've killed herself. While the police look into the death, Hazel and Carlene's stepsister Kat set about figuring out who killed Carlene.
Given that it's a cozy, it's understandable that there's not much drama to Murder at the Book Group; however, the amount of time Hazel spends discussing Carlene and analyzing possible suspects grows to excruciating levels. King also inserts a number of strange asides about exercise and politics that didn't contribute to the development of the plot. Carlene's soap opera-esque bed-hopping did provide entertainment as well as create a grand number of suspects for her murder so that it is hard to guess just who suspicion should fall on.
3/5
Review copy provided by the publisher, Gallery Books.
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