High Stakes: A Novel

A Spoonful of Murder is the debut novel of J.M. Hall. It is a British cozy mystery featuring three kind, smart, and curious protagonists who have extra time on their hands since they retired. I wanted to like this British cozy, but I found it hard to read. I felt like I was in the middle of a tornado twisting round and round. That is what this book felt like to me. The writing style is the problem. The author is overly descriptive, the pacing is slow, and it is hard to tell which character is talking (they all sounded alike to me). There was also too much repetition (because of the switching viewpoint and memories issues). The first two-thirds of the book is slow going with the pacing picking up toward the end as the mystery reaches its climax. We follow Liz, Thelma, and Pat as they go about their day-to-day activities plus work to solve the mystery. We are privy to their thoughts about on their lives, families, and friends (with it often being in parenthesis which is distracting and further slows down the pace). We are introduced to a multitude of people with many of them having nothing to do with the mystery. The author tried to make the mystery complex with multiple red herrings and subplots. By the end of the first chapter, I knew who would die and the identity of the killer. I can understand having a red herring or two, but the author went overboard. The mystery was nicely wrapped up at the end. It is carefully explained how Topsy died and how the killer accomplished the deed. We also are privy as to how the three amateur sleuths pieced together the clues. There are several themes in A Spoonful of Murder that includes elder care, dementia, aging, elder financial fraud, parenting, and childlessness. I like the close friendship between Liz, Thelma, and Pat. I liked the humor scattered throughout the story. II felt, though, that the author missed the mark with this cozy. A Spoonful of Murder should have been a light cozy mystery with plenty of humor and warm characters. The book felt long and drawn out. I wanted to like A Spoonful of Murder, but it was hard as the story jumped from issue to issue and character to character. I found it a chore to complete this book. While A Spoonful of Murder was not for me, I suggest you obtain a sample to judge for yourself. A Spoonful of Murder is an eventful British cozy with coffee klatches, financial fraud, a difficult death, muddled memories, and firm friends.