The Running Bibliophile

Look Alive Twenty-Five (Stephanie Plum, #25) by Janet Evanovich opens with Stephanie Plum and Lula being assigned as the manager and assistant manager at the Red River Deli in Trenton, NJ because the managers keep disappearing. The only clue is that they leave one show behind. Police have no leads, and Lula thinks it alien abduction. One of the things I love about the Stephanie Plum book series is that it follows the same formula each time and that it doesn't have any cliffhangers. I know this is a big complaint of many long time readers, but it doesn't really bother me too much because sometimes I just need to read something that I don't have to think about too hard. This particular book made me laugh out loud in several places, and I didn't try to figure out the culprit or motive behind the disappearances, so I didn't really see the ending coming. However, it did reuse the reality television show angle again that we saw in a previous book so that was a bit disa...

Cream Puff Killer (Lexy Baker, #13) by Leighann Dobbs opens with Lexy Baker needing a lift to deliver her pastries to a meeting. Nan and the rest of her gaggle offer Lexy a ride, but they have to get Ruth's Oldsmobile out of storage first. When their Uber driver drops them off, they find a dead body in the storage unit, which causes the police to open up a cold case from years ago. Although I thoroughly enjoyed this installment of the Lexy Baker cozy mystery book series, the one thing that seemed a bit far fetched is that Lexy, Nans, Ruth, and the rest of their group would take an Uber to get Ruth's car instead of Lexy just taking an Uber by herself for her delivery. I know that this needed to happen for the plot to play out, but this was the one thing that really bothered me about the book. I thought I knew who the killer was and what the motive was early on, but to my chagrin, I was off base. Once it was revealed who it was, I groaned to myself and put my head in the palm o...

I've been in a bit of a reading slump the past few months . . . nothing really has been able to keep my attention very well, not even books by my favorite authors. So, I've been doing a lot of rereading of some of my favorite books, including those from my childhood, in hopes to get out of my slump. I recently had the yearning to reread the first book in the High Heel Mysteries by Gemma Halliday. Synopsis of Spying in High Heels by Gemma Halliday:  Maddie Springer works as a fashion designer . . . that is a designer for kids shoes. In the midst of her current project of designing "Strawberry Shortcake" tennis shoes for tots, her attorney boyfriend, Richard Howe, cancels their lunch plans and goes missing. Howe becomes the prime suspect in a murder and fraud case involving his client Devon Greenway. Wanting to clear her boyfriend's name, Maddie is determined to insert herself into the police investigation in any way she can. I enjoyed Spying in ...