Great Escapes Book Tours Book Review: Time Out

Time Out (A Dodie O’Dell Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
2nd in Series
Publisher: Lyrical Underground (January 17, 2017)
Paperback: 240 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1601837226
E-Book ASIN: B01EQ2N1W6

Synopsis

The amateur actors at the Etonville Little Theatre may be known for chewing the scenery, rbut restaurant manager Dodie O’Dell has something more appetizing for them to sink their teeth into. She’s been taking bows in her small New Jersey town for her theme menus, designed to complement the local productions. This fall, the community theatre is staging Arsenic and Old Lace, set in 1940s Brooklyn, so Dodie is serving up hot dogs, Italian ices, egg creams, and knishes at the weekend food festival.

All is going well until Antonio Digenza, the ex-Off-Off-Broadway director of the show, dies dramatically while noshing on a knish. As rumors of food poisoning quickly spread, Dodie scrambles to rescue the Windjammer restaurant’s reputation. But when clues point to foul play, she’s faced with a cast of suspects all auditioning for the part of DiGenza’s murderer. She’ll need to act fast to shine a spotlight on the killer—before it’s curtains for another victim . . .

Review:  Time Out is the second book in a new series. I absolutely loved it. Dodie is a wonderful cozy mystery heroine and her other cast  of characters make the book a super fun read.

I read a lot of cozy mysteries, and I always look for something new and different when it comes to our amateur sleuths and Dodie is really different. She's a restaurant manager for her uncle's restaurant the Windjammer.

The death in this book doesn't really totally affect Dodie either, though at the beginning it looked like the victim might have suffered from food poisoning. What really surprised me was that it wasn't until the book was all but over that Bill, the police chief learns that there was more to Antonio's death than just a heart attack.

Antonio's the director of the community theater that is putting on Arsenic and Old Lace. He also has enough people that might want him dead and includes a couple of ex wives. His death has the whole community theater in an uproar to the point where they might not put the show on.

It was a fun story, and Dodie is one of the smarter cozy heroines that I've encountered, though I had a hard time figuring out why she involved herself so much in mystery, that wasn't a mystery, to the point where she was leaving her job at all times. Unlike most cozies, she doesn't own the Windjammer, her uncle does and he's the cook, and for someone that is crabby most of the time, I couldn't figure out why he didn't get on her case at all.

Honey was another strange character. She's another niece of Henry's and she sometimes seems to be muscling in on Dodie's job, but then she wants to go back to school too. She's an odd young woman.

When Dodie starts uncovering things in Antonio's past, that's when the story really gets interesting. Antonio definitely isn't a guy that you could like.

I definitely want to go back and read the first book in the series, because I'd like learn more about some of the secondary characters, and I definitely want to see what happens to Dodie and Bill.



Rating: 5 flowers