Plaid and Plagiarism

By: Molly MacRae

Narrated by: Elaine Claxton

Janet Marsh's move into her house has been delayed due to vandalism. Then, when the women go to look for clues that might tell them who is guilty, they find a corpse (murder!) in Janet's garden shed.

Constable Hobbs answers their emergency call. He's calm and quietly pleased, as he's never had a murder case. Then the contents of a dozen or so garbage bags are discovered behind the bookshop. The letters inside are nasty. The more the women find out about Una, the more people they discover who detested her and aren't sad she's gone. If Janet and her bookshop crew are reading the clues right, they're about to expose the most sensational story the town of Inversgail has ever heard.

©2016 Molly MacRae (P)2016 Dreamscape Media, LLC

I wanted to like it, but…

Had so much promise. Great location! Fun characters! A nice light touch of humor! But it couldn’t keep my attention. And too many characters to be introduced in a cozy of such short length. I just finished it last week and I don’t even remember who the murderer was.

Too slow and too many characters

I really wanted to love this book as the setting and plot had so much potential. As it turned out, there were too many characters and it was had to remember who was who. The story dragged miserably even after the dead body was discovered. There wasn't really a drive on the part of the main characters to solve the crime, so I kept wondering if they were actually trying to solve it, or if someone else would come into the story and get cracking on that.
The narration was very well done. I will finish this book, but then will find another series to try.

Excellent book in a great setting

Janet moves from Iowa to Inversgail, Scotland to buy a bookshop and open a tea shop along with her daughter, her best friend, and her daughter's friend. When she goes to move into the home she and her ex-husband bought 30 years earlier, she finds the kitchen full of rotting, stinking garbage. Her estate agent suspects Una, the local popular agony columnist, of committing this vandalism, so when Una is found murdered in Janet's shed -- well, really, her rat of an ex-husband's shed -- the police arrest the agent, though they soon let her go.

The four women get busy learning the ins and outs of running their new bookshop and preparing a tea shop and bed and breakfast, but the murder and vandalism keep getting in the way, forcing the women to use their individual skills to find a solution.

I usually like something about all narrators, but I was especially blown away by Elaine Claxton's narration. Most British readers have difficulty with American accents, but she handles those deftly and also does a terrific Scottish accent as well. I really was greatly impressed by this narrator.

This book is really well written and highly enjoyable. I look forward to reading what I hope will be many more books in this series.

It’s a mixed bag of good and okay.

The narrator makes it difficult for me to give an accurate account of the book because I was constantly distracted by her back and forth attempts at varied accents & dialects.

Though three of the main characters spoke with American accents, their actions were spoken with an English accent.

Within the English/Scottish accents, there were a couple of different dialects mixed within that were a distraction to me as they weren’t consistent. (as did an American “voice” as well)

If/when I am able to read the book rather than listen to it I will be able to give a better review of the book itself.

I don’t discount the narrators abilities with other books as this is my first “listen” with her.
-fingers crossed-

The premise of the book is a good one overall.
I love cozies set in Scotland/UK, and am always glad to indulge in them!

I hope that I will gain an ‘ear’ for the narrator as this is a series that I would like to continue to see how it develops.

OK, but won't read another

The story was interesting, but I found my attention wandering in all the details and large cast of characters. I was interested enough to finish, but not to want to read the next book.