review: the decorator who knew too much by diane vallere

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With the fourth book in the Madison Night series, Diane Vallere changes things up by shifting the setting from Dallas to Palm Springs and providing some of Tex's perspective. Madison and Hudson (who are now a couple) travel with their pets to Palm Springs to help Hudson's brother-in-law with a construction job. But right away things get off to an iffy start as Madison and Hudson are run off the road by an erratic driver. Then Madison spots a body in the river! Unfortunately, the Palm Springs police aren't as willing to believe her story as Tex would be. Tensions rise and Madison learns that even though she's no longer in Dallas, she can't seem to escape being tangentially involved in crimes.

As with the previous books in the series, The Decorator Who Knew Too Much incorporates comedy into the mystery, but this one has more romantic overtones now that Madison and Hudson are together. And even though Madison is dating Hudson now, don't count Tex out! The chapters from his perspective allow for the possibility of something developing on that front too. As for the mystery, it's fantastic with plenty of twists and red herrings to keep the reader guessing while Madison tries to piece things together (since the police are initially quite uninterested in her information). One thing felt a bit off though--Madison's mention of her married former lover. My impression from the second book of the series was that he had lied about being married.

About the audiobook: The Decorator Who Knew Too Much is read by Susie Berneis, who continues to be the perfect voice for Madison. She does well with the other characters too, including Heather (Hudson's young niece); some narrators have a tendency to make children sound shrill, but Berneis doesn't fall into that trap. The audio version was published by Dreamscape Media April 2017 and runs 7 hours.
4/5
Review copy from Audiobook Jukebox.