When her beloved aunt got killed right before her eyes, Francis was positive it was murder. Nate, her friend Amelia’s husband, began to investigate behind the scenes as to the reason why. The situation was corrupted and volatile, and Nate and Andrew had to be very careful while they were investigating.

For me this was just ok, a mystery set in the 20s. I found the language reflected the times but was arduous to read, the case fairly simple, and I could t finish it.

Thanks to Netgalley and Books Go Social for this book.
This apparently is #4 in the series. Didn't know that when I started, but it didn't make a difference that I did not have prior awareness of the series. Did well as a stand-alone.

Our murder takes place during the 1920's. Who ran over Aunt Bea and why? How are folks coping with this horrible 'accident'. I liked the descriptions of the era and speakeasys.

I thought the book was well constructed and well written, and I enjoyed the mystery and the read overall. Not sure why reviewers have given it low ratings. The storyline was engaging and we also got to see the dynamics of a newly wedded couple, one of whom was shellshocked from the war. I thought that was weaved nicely into the overall story line.

Bottom line; I enjoyed the book and the writing style sufficiently to hunt up other books in the series. I did think the ending was a bit abrupt, but overall, a good solid 3 stars.

2 1/2 stars. This is set in New York City in the 1920s, told mostly through the pov of the detective's assistant (which reminds me a bit of the set up with Archie and Nero Wolfe, but this detective has shell shock from WWI and has trouble with crowds but it does not keep him completely confined to the house) of the detective, Nate Walker. Nate Walker's new wife's best friends is about to be married and is in town with her beloved aunt to meet with the future in-laws. Unfortunately, her aunt is killed in a hit-and-run. Frances believes it is murder and asks Nate to investigate.

I love mysteries set in the 1920s but I have to say this fell a bit flat. There are some shifts between pov which did not seem to have much point. There is a lot of time spent on the characters when not much investigating is going on. Which is normally ok, but here it comes down to the inevitable misunderstandings of newlyweds--which is no way malicious and completely realistic considering the normal gives and takes of two people learning to live together for the first time and having to deal with one partner who suffers from severe PTSD--but I didn't read the earlier books in the series when they fell in love so I wasn't invested in their relationship. The biggest thing though was that the mystery was kind of disappointing. I kept on hoping there would be more to it but the title pretty much explains everything.

The book was ok. I was just hoping for a bit more.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review.

There's potential and there's some funny moments and some gripping parts. I think it would be a good book with some more editing.
Not my cup of tea
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

Police say it was an accident. Frances says it's murder and pleads with Nate to sort it out.
Once again in his element, Nate Walker begins putting together the pieces ultimately bringing peace and justice to his wife's best friend's family.
This book is a mystery that I just couldn't get into.
I received this book from NetGalley and the publisher. This in no way affects my opinion of this book which I read and reviewed voluntarily.

I have no idea which category to place this story in. Supposedly a crime story during the 1920s with the KKK and Mafia as suspects. This became a story that has descriptions of food, parties, lovers, marriages, pregnancy, and decor with a mish-mash of characters living the high life being served by butlers, cooks, and numerous servants on call.
Independent review NetGalley / BooksGoSocial

Whilst I now know that this is part of a series, I read it without knowing and I can honestly say that it didn't make any difference. It was a fabulous read and I find the main characters very intriguing. I need to go back and read the others now! I loved the storyline and can't wait to read more!

The storyline of this book sounded very interesting that i was so sure i would like it but sadly it did not live up to my expectations. I couldn't get through to the end.

I wanted to love this book. I really did. It sounded like such a good story—a 1920’s era murder mystery and a private detective, a la Phryne Fisher. Unfortunately, what I got instead was…confusing and disappointing.
I should start out by saying this is the 4th in the series, which I didn’t realize until I had already started. With that in mind, I’m going to leave out any notes that could have been cleared up in previous books. I feel like each book in a series should explain enough from prior books to carry you through, but that’s a personal opinion.

I haven’t had a book be this much of a struggle for me to finish in years. I refused to DFI it, but now that it’s done I’m almost wishing I had. From the beginning, there wasn’t really anything to grab my interest, and very little held it throughout the rest of the book. It really felt more like a ‘slice of life’ piece with a poorly-thought out murder thrown in. The resolution for the murder also felt contrived and implausible. The paragraphs jumped around so much that I frequently got lost and spent a lot of the time going ‘wait, why is this relevant?’ It was all over the place.

Additionally, the POV was inconsistent and confusing. Most of the story is through the MC’s assistant, which felt weird since there was very little sleuthing actually occurring, either with or without him. Every so often the POV would jump to 3rd person, which would have been fine if it had a different tone. It was hard to tell when there was a switch outside of the fact that the assistant just physically wasn’t around. And for one chapter it switched between 3rd person and 1st person from the MC’s wife’s viewpoint.

The characters, on the whole, did nothing for me. They felt flat and I just couldn’t connect with any of them. The women, who throughout were frequently stated to be supposedly smart and strong, irked me with their absolute…I don’t even know. Naïveté? Delicacy? Absolute insipidness? The men were slightly better, I suppose, but by the end of the book my notes just read ‘oh my god everyone in this book is incredibly stupid.’

If the characters are bland, the rest of the information is entirely lackluster…except for the oddly graphic depictions of the murder scene. Seriously, it doesn’t fit. It’s weirdly fixated upon and described in a concerning amount of detail compared to the rest of the story, but only ever in the same exact way, no matter which character is talking. Also, there’s another, honestly more disturbing, occurrence that’s weirdly focused upon—the gang rape of the housekeeper’s sister. It’s explained to the MC’s wife after she makes a passing comment in German. It was completely unnecessary to the overall story, it takes up far too much space, and while it doesn’t go into graphic detail, it’s clear what it is and it’s somehow more disconcerting because of it. It somehow felt ickier than if it had been the whole point of the book and had been explicitly detailed. Just…why.

There’s no good segue from that, so moving on: the translations. Or rather, the lack of translations. A decent portion of conversation occurs in French and there’s little to no other dialogue to explain what’s going on. Later, Italian is also used, but that was translated almost verbatim every time. Why translate the Italian and not French? Not a clue.

Nate (the MC, supposedly) apparently was involved in the war and came home with a major case of shell shock. Not uncommon and, again, we won’t hate on backstory we probably would have gotten in books 1-3, but Nate’s ‘illness,’ as it’s referred to almost the whole time, feels like an excuse. Not an excuse by Nate, but by the author, as a way to get out of having to actually explain…anything. Any time Nate’s conversing with someone and explaining things, he has an issue with his ‘illness’ and has to go calm down alone. I have fairly substantial social anxiety, so I get needing to excuse yourself and decompress, but if you’re going to make the MC functionally useless in settings of any stress and/or more than four people, you’re going to need to find another way to convey your information to the reader. I still don’t know where he was going with at least five different expositional conversations.

Speaking of exposition… a lot of the story felt like ‘tell not show.’ See also: lackluster background information. The whole thing really just felt like a first draft. It felt messy and incomplete and not fully thought out. This book apparently published in December 2022, so obviously a final copy was released, but I’m not convinced that I actually read it. There were massive holes in the storyline, entire pages seemed to be missing in the middle of sentences, and I’m about 90% certain that ‘holy crap’ and ‘shut the front door’ were not in use in the 20’s. I’m also fairly certain the author has never actually been to the south, but that’s beside the point. And if I see the word ‘gaffe’ again any time in the near future, I might scream.

Like I said, I wanted to love it. Maybe this was just an extremely early draft of what’s actually a great series. I’d definitely be willing to try the first book to see if it’s better. But if I’m basing it solely off of this experience, I’d rather go swimming with Jay Gatsby.