Well they’re back. Yes the threesome Sara, Kate, and Jack. And of course there is the requisite murder to solve. Old murder, new case and Sara Medlar and her group are on it. Gruesome discovery unveiled by accident, one would say, but not true in this case. The Lachlan House is finally being put on the market and the owner or caretaker requested Kate, as a realtor, to oversee it.
Nothing in any Medlarmystery is by accident. Jude Deveraux somehow manages to create the most cryptically designed murders. We know all the details of the victim but now to find who 'dun it.'
You need a character map to sort through all the possible choices as likely suspects arrive at Lachlan. The road will ultimately lead to who killed Derek Oliver. And perhaps a motive will become clear. For now those folk who were at that fateful party many years ago are answering the invite that Sara and her little band of detectives sent out.
Who will accept the invite and who won’t. Not sure if their rsvp is an indication of guilt or innocence.
How many books by Jude Deveraux have you read? By my count, I have seventy-five percent or more. Mostly for my own enjoyment and several for publishing reviews. While reading AN UNFINISHED MURDER the character Sara Medlar, author extraordinaire, I concluded that Sara is unflinchingly fashioned after Jude Deveraux herself. At least that is in my own estimation and mind. Never more so than in this latest Medlar-Wyatt story. There are references to past novels that truly made me break out in a smile of acknowledgment and recollection. Watch for them.
Suffice it to say you may need a flow chart to keep account of all the characters and their relationships to one another. The lines seem blurred at times which is of course by design. Sara is a genius of plot lines after all her murder mystery books are best sellers. Sara has her team, Kate and Jack that support her idiosyncrasies and share her love of adventure. But there is something odd in the air surrounding their arrival at Lachlan House. The murder, surroundings and guests somehow seem almost connected to the Medlar-Wyatt trio. The guests are also much nicer than Sara had expected. She reluctantly has to admit that she likes most of them. Or at least doesn’t hate them. Everyone and no one a likely suspect. And the appearance of a trail of murders is an unexpected development.
The plot line is genius and vintage Jude Deveraux who knows how to dangle hints, clues, vagueness. AN UNFINISHED MURDER is a wondrous completion of this series. If indeed it is meant to be. Perhaps Jude Deveraux is already thinking of the next possible crime to solve. As always the characters are formidable and delicious. The dialog moves the story along at a fast clip. The house in itself becomes one of the characters as it holds so many clues left to unveil.
Sara Medlar may be retired as a bestselling author, but her career as an amateur detective is facing one final mystery—and it’s a killer.
Retired romance novelist Sara Medlar has been comfortably sharing her large home with her niece Kate and her “honorary grandson” Jack. It’s a convenient arrangement given the Medlar Three, as they’ve become known, are often working closely together to solve mysteries in their small town of Lachlan, Florida. But when real estate agent Kate announces she’s been given the listing for the town’s storied Lachlan House, it sets off alarm bells for Sara and Jack. The infamous house has a dark history, one that’s certain to haunt them all.
With little memory of her childhood, Kate doesn’t understand what the fuss is about—until the trio visits the house and makes a grim discovery. Flooded by memories of the past, Kate realizes she spent time there as a child. But stumbling upon a skeleton dressed in a rotting tuxedo—a murder victim with connections to her father—causes Kate to wonder if the childhood she can’t remember might be one she’d rather forget.
As Sara, Kate and Jack delve deeper into the dead man’s history, they learn he was last seen at a party held at Lachlan House in the late nineties—a swanky soiree attended by his many enemies. With more than one motive in play, every partygoer is a suspect, and Sara is determined to find the culprit, even if it means digging up past secrets she’s worked hard to keep buried.
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