Beeline to Trouble by Hannah Reed 🔖🔖

This is what's considered a cozy mystery - a story wherein (usually) a woman "accidentally" becomes an amateur sleuth and solves a murder. The writing style is such that "sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community." Light, simple, not a lot of depth necessarily. Still, I was expecting a tad bit more to this book but kept thinking Reed's writing seemed as amateur as her crime solver. The story is very basic, the plot is thin. Basically while touring the sleuth's bee hives, one of the guests is found dead. Then we enter drama revolving around her boyfriend (with constant references to his looks and sexiness, referring to him as "my man" which feels so juvenile) and peppered in is drama around her relationship with her mother. The sleuth "becomes a prime suspect when the carrot juice she brought with the breakfast fixings is found to contain poison." Predictable, really.

I can point out the flaws - some already mentioned above - including her use of bullet points which were distracting/annoying, and the fact that she has factual errors (acronyms vs initials, carbon dioxide vs carbon monoxide), but I can't really hone in on the great points of the book. I didn't find any.

I did finish it, I found it remotely entertaining, but surely would not recommend or keep a copy of my own.