Elizabeth Lee (1)

Nut and Buried is the third book in the A Nut House Mystery series.

And the name of the series says it all.

The series is set in the Pecan Valley of Texas and has a wonderful cast of characters. Lindy Blanchard has gotten her college education and has returned to the families pecan farm in Riverville where she trying to develop a drought resistant strain of pecan trees.

Lindy and her family have been invited to the Wheatly's to celebrate the marriage of Jeannie and Eugene and are asked to come in Texas related costumes. Lindy doesn't want to go to the celebration, but her grandmother, Miss Amelia insists. Lindy goes dressed as the first woman hanged in Texas and the celebration goes downhill from there. Eugene has a rather extensive gun collection and soon excuses himself so he can get some guns ready to show to a possible buyer. A gunshot is heard and when everyone gets to where the shot was, Eugene is dead and no one is around. Elizabeth, Eugene's sister, has been very possessive of brother all evening and has been extremely rude to Jeannie all evening. After the shooting, she informs Jeannie that she will not be getting any of the Wheatly's money.

Miss Amelia and Lindy are sure that Eugene has been murdered and begin to do a little sleuthing to find out who the murderer might be. At the same time they feel with the way Elizabeth is acting it would be best to get the grieving widow out of a stressful situation and ask the Chauncey twins, Melanie and Miranda, to take Jeannie in until things settle down. One of the guests at the party, Dr. Peter Franklin seems to have taken an interest in Lindy and telling her he is also a researcher along the same line that she is doing. Lindy is very protective of work and hopefully she can learn more about Franklin before it is too late.

Lindy and Miss Amelia are two strong willed, but compassionate women and provide the reader with entertaining banter, but above all has each others back and those they care about. I never tire of the Chauncey twins, 80 something, gun toting(somebody needs to kill the rattlesnakes on their farm) and feisty as the day is long. One would hate to be their enemy, but would love to be called their friend.

Will be watching for the next exciting book in this nutty series.… (plus d'informations)

Well, it just goes to show. A GR friend of mine, whose taste is so close to mine I'd have called her recommendations close to infallible, loved this read. She's never steered me wrong, and I already had it on my TBR pile, so when I saw that she 5 starred it, I decided I'd pick it up next.

This will be the exception that proves the rule. Because I disliked this book. A lot. The MC could have been likeable; I love her background in horticulture and bioengineering. But she's so busy throughout this book running around reacting to everything, we never really learn much about her as a person at all. Her Grandmother, Miss Amelia, is a pivotal character, but she's so busy telling everyone how wise she is, how much life experience she has, she just irritated the fool out of me. Not to mention she spent a good deal of time contradicting herself; often within the same paragraph. The dialogue just did not work for me all; it felt disjointed and overdone; jerky. Too much "we're from Texas", too much verbal strutting.

The plot was sadly transparent. The author didn't introduce enough characters for there to be any real mystery. If the reader operates from the premise that the family is innocent, there's really only one option. But the author did tie old crimes and new together well, and she did build up a certain amount of suspense towards the end. I appreciated the total lack of TSTL moments, and I liked the way she crafted the ending.

I'm going to call out the editing too, while I'm at it. In one scene they are waiting at the jail until "almost 3pm" then go off to visit/interrogate a neighbour, who answers the door with "I never expected Blanchards at my door this morning." Also, throughout the first part of the book there are multiple references to her father being dead 2 years, then half way through it's suddenly 5 years.

All in all, I got no enjoyment out of this read. But it does seem to work for other people whose opinions I trust, so I'll leave it with: Your Mileage May Vary.… (plus d'informations)

Magna cum 'laudie' Lindy Blanchard has worked hard to try and find drought resistant pecan trees in her lab/greenhouse on the grounds of the family pecan farm in Riverville, Texas. When wayward Uncle Amos is found amid the wreckage of all her hard work and Lindy's brother Justin seems to be the only suspect, she and her meemaw, Miss Amelia, decide their local police need their assistance. While some of the secondary characters seemed very familiar--the elderly twin sisters, a deputy that grew up with Lindy--others brought humor and life to the story. The conclusion was fairly transparent, but I will chalk that up to be the first in the series and hope to read more about this particular pecan farm.… (plus d'informations)