Cinco de Murder by Rebecca Adler
It's Cinco de Mayo and in Broken Boot, Texas, Josie has agreed to help her Uncle Eddie with Broken Boot's first annual Charity Chili Cook-off. Uncle Eddie is desperate to make a good impression with the City Council with this event and he needs it go off without a hitch. Sadly, things don't go in his favor when one of the contestants, a crotchety man by the name of Lucky Straw, ends up dead. While checking the grounds to make sure nobody was trying to get in an unfair advantage Josie is the one who stumbles upon the unfortunate Lucky. I guess one could say that either he wasn't so lucky or that his luck ran out. Things don't look good for the cook-off continuing, but when Josie's Uncle is accused of possibly being negligent of his duties she's determined to figure out what really happened and why. She'll have her hands more than full though with the Cinco de Mayo celebrations going on. She's already committed to dancing in the parade with her folklorico troupe, she's waitressing at the family restaurant, and she's trying to make time to write her article for the paper. Will she be able to balance it all? Vindicate her Uncle, discover what really happened and stay out of trouble? You'll just have to read to find out.
"Cinco de Murder" by Rebecca Adler is book three in her A Taste of Texas Mystery series. This is the first book that I have read by this author. When I first saw the cover for this book I was excited to read it. I was curious to see what trouble Josie was going to get into. While this book can be read as a standalone novel, I think that it will benefit new readers more to start at the beginning. The way that the author writes, it seems that the characters are pretty established for her overall, and so we don't get a lot of background on them. We get hints and clues at things that have happened in the past, but the author never really goes back and fills in for new readers.
I like the humorous moments that the author writes the story. I feel that in the right places it helps to lighten the story up a bit. Josie has some engaging moments, but they aren't as often as I would like. There are moments of where Josie seems like a good strong female character, but then she devolves in others to be a bit simple to me. I like the little hints of romance that the author writes into the story. It's well done, and I like that a little flame seems to still be kindled between her and an old flame.
As for the mystery element to this story, I have to say that I enjoyed that the most. I love a good mystery novel of where the author keeps me trying to figure out who the murderer is. For a time or two, I thought that I had it figured out but the author managed to surprise me in the end.
I wanted to enjoy this story more, but since I feel like I was missing out on a lot of history between the characters I just couldn't. I wanted to know more about her and Ryan. She's still carrying a bit of a torch for him, but she also has mixed feelings toward him as well. I'm curious as to what all has been transpiring between her and Lightfoot as well. At the pace that the story goes, one would think that quite a bit of time has passed, but everything transpires within a couple of days. Also, the author leaves us with some unanswered questions. I really don't like it when this happens. Certain things are incorporated in the story, but the author never comes back and identifies what really transpired.
All in all, I'm rating this book 4 out of 5 stars. For just diving into the series, the characters come off a bit flat to me, and the story isn't as engaging as I would have liked. The mystery element is there, but there are certain situations that are left unresolved. I like that we get some romance and the promise of more between two characters. This is a good book, but I recommend to readers that if you haven't read the first in this series that you do so. That way maybe the characters will have more depth and you'll know more about what is going on.
