Name: Birthday Party Murder
ISBN: 9781575668338

Leslie Meier

While preparing for Miss Tilley's ninetieth birthday bash and her daughter's coed sleepover birthday party, Lucy Stone stumbles upon a mystery when the town's oldest attorney supposedly commits suicide and Miss Tilley's long lost niece unexpectedly arrives in town. Reissue.

Birthday Party Murder

Sarah Sammis

Miss Tilly's 90th birthday.

This volume differs from the previous volumes because it has extended point of view chapters from Miss Tilly. Along with her present day scenes are numerous flashbacks to her early childhood. These help contextualize Miss Tilly's character as she's been presented in the series so far: the stern, routine oriented spinster librarian. I suppose too it's to make her a more likable character.

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These books seem like odd ducks. There definitely cozy mysteries, but they're more than that too. It's not even as much about the mystery sometimes as it is about Lucy and her trying to have children of multiple ages and make her sleuthing work with the schedules. I'm honestly invested in how this family turns out, and that's something to say when I usually don't like he cozy character archetypes.

That said, there are some darker tones in this book. Elder abuse and aging plays a big role, as well as birthdays in general. I think it's a mix of that casual cozy but a little bit of edge. Overall it was easy to figure out at least half of the mystery, although I couldn't figure out the killer until told.