Book ~ "The Murders at Astaire Castle" (2013) Lauren Carr

From Goodreads ~ Never tell Mac Faraday not to do something.

Spencer’s police chief, David O’Callaghan, learns this lesson the hard way when he orders Mac Faraday to stay away from the south end of Spencer’s mountaintop - even though he owns the property. It doesn’t take long for Mac to find out what lies on the other side of the stone wall and locked gate, on which hangs a sign warning visitors to Keep Out!

Topping the list of the ten most haunted places in America, Astaire Castle is associated with two suicides, three mysterious disappearances, and four murders since it was built almost a century ago - and Mac Faraday owns it!

In spite of David’s warning, Mac can’t resist unlocking the gate to see the castle that supposedly hasn’t seen a living soul since his late mother had ordered it closed up after the double homicide and disappearance of Damian Wagner, a world-famous master of horror novels.

What starts out as a quick tour of a dusty old castle turns into another Mac Faraday adventure when Astaire Castle becomes the scene of even more murders. Mac is going to need to put all of his investigative talents to work to sort out this case that involves the strangest characters he has run into yet - including a wolf man. No, we’re not talking about Gnarly.

Mac is the illegitimate son of the famous mystery writer, Robin Spencer.  He discovers this when she dies and leaves her estate to him.  One day he is a homicide detective and the next a retired millionaire.  He just discovered that there is a castle on the property he has inherited but it's been locked up for years because it's evil ... there have been some mysterious deaths and disappearances over the years.

Riley had disappeared years ago after a Halloween party and has become a wolf man, living off the land around the castle.  He is captured and taken to the hospital.  His sister, Chelsea, comes home to deal with it and hooks up with again with her first love, David, who is now the police chief and was Riley's friend.

Suddenly there is a lot of interest in the castle.  A millionaire wants to buy it for his bride.  Someone else thinks a book written by an author who had disappeared is hidden there.  And  then the bodies start piling up again and it's up to Mac to find out what's going on.

This is the fifth book I've read by this author and I enjoyed it ... it is the third I've read in the Mac Faraday series.  Though it is the fifth in a series, it worked well as a stand alone ... you don't need to have read the previous ones to know what's going on.  I liked the writing style and it kept my interest ... I kept wanting to read more to find out what was going to happen.  The writing was suspenseful and funny at times.  It's written in third person perspective.

I liked the characters.  Mac and Archie, his girlfriend who worked for Robin Spencer, obviously care about each other.  Mac's dog, Gnarly, is funny and falls in puppy love with Chelsea's well-behaved service dog, Molly.  David and Chelsea are cautious since their last meeting didn't go well (David had dumped her for someone more well-endowed).

I look forward to reading others in this series and others by this author.

Book ~ "A Wedding and a Killing" (2014) Lauren Carr

From Goodreads ~ When Mac Faraday decides to do something, there’s no stopping him … even murder!

Not wanting to wait until their big day to start their life of wedded bliss, Mac Faraday and his lady love, Archie Monday, decide to elope to the little church where his ancestors had all married - along the tranquil shore of Deep Creek Lake. However, before they can say, “I do,” the sanctuary erupts into chaos when Gnarly finds a dead body in the church office.

As they dive into the investigation, Mac and his team discover more questions than answers. What kind of person walks into a church and shoots a man for no apparent reason? How do you solve the murder of a man who has no enemies in the world? Which of the seemingly kind-hearted church members is really a cold-blooded killer?

Then, there is the all-important question, how long do Mac Faraday and his lady love have to wait to get married?

Mac is the illegitimate son of the famous mystery writer, Robin Spencer.  He discovers this when she dies and leaves her estate to him.  He was a homicide detective and his inheritance prompted him to retire and act as a consultant with the local police department.

Mac and Archie Monday, who had worked for Robin, decide to secretly get married.  Just as the ceremony is about to start, his dog, Gnarly, causes a ruckus and they discover a dead body in the church office.  Eugene had been counting the church's collection when someone shot and killed him but left the money behind, so robbery isn't the motive.  Needless to say, this interrupts the wedding. Mac and David, the chief of police, start investigating and there doesn't seem to be a reason for Eugene's murder and no obvious suspects.

This is the fourth book I've read by this author and I liked it ... it is the second I've read in the Mac Faraday series.  Though it is the eighth in a series, it worked well as a stand alone ... you don't need to have read the previous ones to know what's going on.  I liked the writing style ... it was funny at times and is written in third person perspective.  I found it a bit too religious (I'm not), though ... I guess that makes sense considering a lot of the action takes place in a church.  Plus I wasn't buying the "whodunnit" at then end.  I did like the other storylines in this book with Edna and Ruth.

I look forward to reading others in this series and others by this author.

Book ~ "Real Murder" (2014) Lauren Carr

From Goodreads ~ When Homicide Detective Cameron Gates befriends Dolly, the little old lady who lives across the street, she is warned not to get lured into helping the elderly woman by investigating the unsolved murder of one of her girls. “She’s senile,” Cameron is warned. “It’s not a real murder.”

Such is not the case. After Dolly is brutally murdered, Cameron discovers that the sweet blue-haired lady’s “girl” was a call girl, who had been killed in a mysterious double homicide.

Meanwhile, Prosecuting Attorney Joshua Thornton is looking for answers to the murder of a childhood friend, a sheriff deputy whose cruiser is found at the bottom of a lake. The deputy had disappeared almost twenty years ago while privately investigating the murder of a local prostitute.

It doesn’t take long for the Lovers in Crime to put their cases together to reveal a long-kept secret that some believe is worth killing to keep undercover. 

There are three timelines in the book ...

In 1976, Ava, a call girl, and her guest are found murdered in Dolly's, the gentleman's club where she works, and the case is never solved.

In 1996, Mike, a sheriff's deputy, disappears on his way to meeting an informant on a case he was working on and is never found.

It's now 2014.  Joshua is a prosecuting attorney and Cameron is a homicide detective and they've recently gotten married, though is adult children, especially his daughter, Tracey, aren't too crazy about the idea.

Mike's body has just been found at the bottom of a lake, still in his cruiser and the investigation begins to find out what happened. In the meantime, Cameron befriends Joshua's elderly neighbour, Dolly.  Dolly tells Cameron about the murder of Ava, one of her "girls", many years ago and how the murder was never solved.  Then Dolly is found brutally murdered.

As more deaths are rediscovered and reinvestigated from the past, it seems like they may be connected ... but are they?  I was okay with how everything came to together and the murders were solved in the end.

This is the third book I've read by this author and I enjoyed it ... it is the second I've read in the Joshua and Cameron series.  I liked the writing style and it kept my interest ... I kept wanting to read more to find out what was going to happen.  It's written in third person perspective.

There were a lot of characters.  In case you have a hard time keeping track of them, there was a cast of characters list in the front of the book to refer back to if needed.  I liked Joshua and Cameron and thought they were good together.  Donny, Joshua's youngest son, is fifteen and lives with them and accepted and liked Cameron in his life.  Dolly, though not in the book long, sounded like a feisty colourful old girl who had lots of stories to tell (Al Capone was her "Uncle Al").

I look forward to reading more in this series.

Book ~ "Twelve to Murder" (2014) Lauren Carr

From Goodreads ~ Two people are brutally murdered in their summer place on Deep Creek Lake. Suspected of the murders, former child star and one-time teenybopper idol, Lenny Frost, takes innocent bystanders hostage in a local pub and demands that Mac Faraday find the killer. 

Can Mac save the hostages and himself from the wrath of the enraged has-been by piecing together the clues in less than twelve hours, or will it be a fatal last call at the stroke of midnight?

Janice and Austin are found murdered in their home.  Has-been Lenny Frost, Janice's former child-star client, is the suspect ... a witness saw him entering the house the night of the murder and Janice had written his name with her blood before she died.  In a desperate attempt to get the police to proof his innocence, Lenny takes some patrons in a pub hostage and demands that the police find out who is the real killer within twelve hours ... if not, at midnight the hostages will be killed.

As detective Mac Faraday and his friend/cop, David O'Callaghan, start to investigate, they discover that this story could be tied to some incidents that happened many years ago ... Lenny's girlfriend, Kate, had committed suicide and Lenny had been kidnapped (the money was never recovered and kidnapper wasn't caught).  In addition, there is major drug dealing at the club Janice had bought for her son, Derrick ... could it have been a drug deal gone bad that caused Janice and Austin to killed?

This is the second book I've read by this author and I enjoyed it.  I liked the writing style and thought it flowed well.  It's written in third person perspective.  The writing was suspenseful and funny at times.  There were lots of twists and turns and things to keep track of.  Thank goodness Mac and David summarized everything at the end and pulled everything together so I could see how it all fit.

It is the latest in the Mac Faraday series (#7 maybe?).  Though it is part of a series, it worked well as a stand alone ... you don't need to have read the previous ones to know what's going on (it's the first I've read in this series).

There were a lot of characters and at first I found it hard to keep track of them.  There was a cast of characters list in the front of the book to refer back to if needed.  I liked the interaction between the characters.  They obviously cared about each other.  Mac's "lady love" is Archie ... they are at the point where she wants to move forward and get married but he's still cautious because he'd been burned by his ex-wife.  Mac's dog, Gnarly, is funny.

I liked the characters and the setting and look forward to reading others in this series and others by this author.

Book ~ "Dead on Ice" (2012) Lauren Carr

From Goodreads ~ Dead on Ice is the first installment of Lauren Carr’s new series (Lovers in Crime) featuring Hancock County Prosecuting Attorney Joshua Thornton and Pennsylvania State Police homicide detective Cameron Gates.

Spunky Cameron Gates is tasked with solving the murder of Cherry Pickens, a legendary star of pornographic films, whose body turns up in an abandoned freezer. The case has a personal connection to her lover, Joshua Thornton, because the freezer was located in his cousin’s basement. It doesn’t take long for their investigation to reveal that the risqué star’s roots were buried in their rural Ohio Valley community, something that Cherry had kept off her show business bio. She should have kept her hometown off her road map, too—because when this starlet came running home from the mob, it proved to be a fatal homecoming.

This is the first book I've read by Lauren Carr and I really enjoyed it.  It is the first in the Cameron Gates/Joshua Thornton (Lovers in Crime) series and the third one to feature Joshua ... I'd like to go back and read the first two with Joshua.

Cameron is a cop and Joshua is a prosecuting attorney.  Joshua is a widower with five children (just teenager Donny is living at home) and a dog named Admiral and Cameron is a widow with a big cat that looks like a skunk named Irving.

This book begins with the discovery of the body a famous porn star named Cherry Pickens in the freezer in the basement of a recently deceased lawyer whose house blows up while it was being cleaned up for an estate sale.  Cherry  disappeared from Hollywood in the summer of 1985 and was really a local girl named Cheryl Smith.

What a start, eh?!

Cameron and Joshua start investigating the murder and it leads them back to the unsolved murder of a sweet girl named Angie Sullivan in 1977.  No one is really sad to discover that Cheryl is dead because everyone assumed she killed Angie ... but did she?  And if she didn't, who did?

There are lots of characters ... don't let that scare you because there is a summary of who everyone is at the beginning of the book if you need it (I didn't).

I enjoyed the writing style and the characters.  It was interesting and fast paced.  Just when I thought I had it figured out, a twist would come along and I'd be wrong ... or was I?

One thing I did find annoying was Irving, Cameron's cat. I love kitties but I found it hard to believe that she would take this cat almost everywhere she went.  What cop would take a cat to their office or a  crime scene?  Plus he's very domineering and isn't a fan of Joshua's and lets him know it.