ARC Review: Lethal in Old Lace by Duffy Brown

Lethal in Old Lace
Author: Duffy Brown
Series: Consignment Shop (Book 5)
Publication: Crooked Lane Books (March 13, 2018)

Description: Reagan Summerside returns in national bestselling author Duffy Brown’s fifth Consignment Shop mystery, now for the first time in hardcover.

There are two social functions in Savannah guaranteed to get people talking: weddings and funerals. And just as consignment shop owner Reagan Summerside agrees to marry the hunky Walker Boone, her neighbors, sisters Annie Fritz and Elsie Abbot, step up their business as professional mourners. They are so successful that the Sleepy Pines Retirement Center has hired them as a part of their retirement package. But the celebration over good business is cut short when the residents at Pines suddenly begin dying at an alarming rate. And the sisters are the first suspects.

Reagan has her doubts, however, and begins to look into the strange phenomenon. But then something even stranger happens: a body winds up in the sisters’ pink Caddy. The evidence begins to pile up and the suspicious case of Willie Fishbine, who swindled the sisters out of a fortune and coincidentally died prior to the Pines case, is reopened.

Not wanting Willie to be buried until they can find the killer responsible for the murders, Reagan must catch the culprit in time to walk down the aisle. Witty, fabulous, and full of charm, Lethal in Old Lace is perfect for fans of Ellery Adams and Jenn McKinlay.

My Thoughts: Reagan Summerside should be planning her wedding to hunky lawyer Walker Boone but a plethora of dead bodies get in her way. She and her intrepid Aunt KiKi along with Bruce Willis her wonderful rescue dog are on the case.

It starts at Willie Fishbine's funeral which is poorly attended. Reagan's neighbors Annie Fritz and Elsie are worried about their new business as professional mourners. They need the money because they were sucked into Willie's miracle vitamin scheme which turned out to make money only for Willie.

When a second body - Bonnie Sue's -- is found in their pink Caddy, things look even worse for the sisters. But they aren't the only ones who got sucked into Willie's money-making scheme. Reagan and Aunt KiKi find lots of suspects when they start investigating the Sleepy Pines Retirement Center.

This book was filled with Southern humor from the Southern Belle who is shopping for wedding gowns and booking wedding venues long before her desired fiance has proposed. Given that he is dating a couple of other women and in cahoots with Reagan's ex-husband in attempting to buy Sleepy Pines, he looks like a good suspect for the murders but an unlikely fiance for the Belle. But then there are a number of people at Sleepy Pines who bought into the vitamin scheme and wanted Willie dead.

This book was filled with great characters and was very funny. I loved the way Walker accepted all of Reagan's crazy actions. She and her companions get into all sorts of situations that were played for humor. Who steals a corpse in a coffin and hides it in a car to give themselves time to find the killer? Who keeps moving a corpse around?

I loved this story and am eager to go back and read the previous books in this series.

Favorite Quote:

I spun around, arms spread wide. "And what about me stumbling across all these dead bodies lately? I don't go around looking for them; they just sort of show up on their own. Poof, and there's trouble right in front of me. I think I've acquired some kind of dead body syndrome. Why would anyone want to marry me with all this going on? Heck, I scare myself half the time."

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.