Romantic Suspense / Mystery
Published: August 7, 2018
This Mystery Series Has Me Hooked!
Elise Sax is a new author for me, so this first in the GOODNIGHT MYSTERIES was my introduction to her. It’s why I opened DIE NOON with trepidation even though it falls squarely in the category of mystery which happens to be my very favorite genre. It was the not knowing what to expect that caused the caution. But the addition of paranormal to the mix lured me in, while the promise of romance drew me away. I just was not at all confident about the romance not screwing things up, but I quickly learned to trust this author … and it only took me getting to the second page to find out Sax was spot on! Because there … on the second page … right there in the third paragraph, Matilda Dare, Sax’s feisty protagonist in this series, is asked a question about whether or not she’ll shut down the newspaper she’s just inherited. Her answer locked up this story as a winner and Elise Sax as a new favorite author. Am I usually this easily won over? Hardly. But the answer Dare gave set the tone, explained how Matilda Dare found herself in this mess of a position she was in, and delivered the key to understanding the character’s mindset. “Total and utter confusion” would be an understatement. It also had me snorting coffee and laughing for about an hour. I’m talking out loud and hysterically.
But it’s no wonder Dare reacts that way to the unfortunate and peculiar set of circumstances she finds herself in. For starters, she’s the startled recipient of the Goodnight Gazette, a newspaper she never wished, wanted, or asked for. It was gifted to her through an inheritance all thanks to previous publisher/owner Chris Simmons who died by a hornet sting while he was taking a walk. He also very ‘kindly’ left her his two aging dogs that accompanied him on that infamous last tour around the neighborhood. But Dare is ever the optimist. So even with the gifts she has no idea what to do with, she does what every non-thinking-straight optimist does when tobogganing into irrationality, and that is, uproot her home and drive to Goodnight, New Mexico to take over the paper. Evidently, she’s hoping she can absorb enough journalism savvy through osmosis to make this challenge work. And work it does … but sort of like a platformed wagon with no sides laden with produce sliding off the bed even when the wagon that is missing one wheel is at a standstill. Did I mention this vehicle has no gas? But besides the disastrous career decision, there’s the fact she keeps seeing dead people. Yeah, things are not looking up for Dare except maybe for two hunkadoodles who are aiding and abetting her insomnia with dreams of hooking up and getting down.
Ms. Sax does a fantastic balancing act in keeping all facets of her protagonist’s life in the air and active. There’s a murder … a handsome stranger (did I mention he came included with the house? Well, I am now) … a sheriff that she can’t be around without sweating … a four-person staff at the paper who try to show her the ropes by having her become a reporter (sort of) … and a premonition that there’s a serial killer running loose. Yes, the serial killings are where seeing dead people come in.
And I don’t want to skim over this juggling act the author performs because going from comedy to tension-driven, nail-biting deceased victims delivering the news of being killed is not an easy task. But Ms. Sax makes it look that way by seamlessly shifting the mood without disrupting the two diverse elements. So the investigative work stays in its lane … the murdered women in theirs … while the fantasized sex with the sheriff and the mysterious stranger who came with the house, veers the ten-wheeler all over the road.
I completely and totally enjoyed reading DIE NOON. It’s the hilarity that makes it all work, and it’s why I’m giving this story five stars. If murder mixed with comedy, the dead coming back to deliver messages, lust, sleepless nights, and discovering how not to be a journalist by trial and error sounds like your cup of tea with crumpets, I suggest you partake even if not quite sure what crumpets are. Trust me … these crumpets are just fine.
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