Return to Cascade Bay (Elsie Hargrove Mysteries #1)

Author: Claire Blackwood

5 out of 5 stars

After ten years of world travel, Elsie Hargrove returns to her hometown to takeover a shut down restaurant. However, the excitement of opening night is shattered when Elsie finds the body of her landlord in the restaurant’s freezer. When one of her employees ends up on the suspects list, Elsie is determined to find the real killer.

The plot was really interesting. A discovery early on leads to multiple suspects, and there were other intriguing twists too. Given the book is less than 150 pages long, the plot was more complex than I expected and even took a dark turn that surprised me.

Overall, the writing was really good. I enjoyed the descriptive way Elsie’s early-morning arrival into town was written. All of the dialogue was well done and didn’t feel stilted at all. Everything had a good pace and flow.

Elsie was really interesting. I became more and more curious as the story went on about what Elsie had been doing while she was gone. From what she says later, she was just traveling and having adventures. But honestly, some of the lore dropped, a Moroccan prison, makes her sound like she was a spy or some type of government agent. Hopefully more about her travels is revealed later.

There’s a theme of returning to your hometown and how things change or stay the same. We get glimpses into the past with Elsie’s memories and her meeting old friends.

Overall, I really liked this story and the characters. There wasn’t anything I disliked about it, so I’m rating it 5 out of 5 stars.If you’re looking for a shorter but still complex mystery, then you should definitely give it a read.

Price through Amazon Kindle: $2.99

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSCCGWP7

(I do not benefit from the use of this link.)