Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.
This is the 12th book in the Noodle Shop Mystery series. At this point the series is like a well oiled machine. We have Lana, Meghan, Kimmy, investigating with Adam and the Mahong Matrons assisting. In this newest one, Lana helps out the bookstore owner in the plaza she knows. She’s happy to help since one of her favorite authors is going to come to the bookstore to sign copies of her newest book. When the author unexpectedly dies though, Lana and her friends are on the case when all signs point to murder.
Lana and her sister’s relationship is still fractured, but her relationships with Adam, Meghan, and Kimmy have gotten stronger. At this point everyone knows Lana is an amateur sleuth and she doesn’t have to run around pretending she’s not looking into the crime. That definitely makes things easier. I think that it was good though to see Lana/Meghan getting better at their sleuthing though Kimmy was very hard to take and I honestly don’t get why she’s even invested. I don’t think Chien has done enough IMHO to even show why Lana stays friends with Kimmy cause she’s mostly annoying to me as a character.
Lana and Adam’s relationship is very strong per usual and it seems as if they are moving to a point of moving in together (eventually) and even seeing that they are going to be with each other in the long-term. We get hints about Meghan’s past relationship but I really wish that Chien had delved into that more. I did call BS though on who she decides she’s interested in and who is interested in her. It just felt overly complicated and not realistic.
The main mystery though was good, I was interested in it because the idea of an author being murdered similar to a story she wrote was great, but I wish that Chien had followed that thread a bit more. It seemed as if everyone was a bad red Herring and I guessed pretty early who the guilty party was and wondered why in the world Lana didn’t get there quicker.
The book did read a bit fillerly to me but I enjoyed it anyway.
