Published: April 01, 2011
Words: 109,750 (approximate)
Language: English
ISBN: 9781458084040

Short description

When police discover a body in the trunk of Bo Forrester's cab, he quickly becomes the prime suspect. To clear his name, he must track down the murderer, navigating an unfamiliar world of privilege and corruption while staying one step ahead of the cute-but-crazy female deputy who's determined to arrest him.

Extended description

Finding a corpse in the trunk of your cab is a rotten way to start the day. For Bo Forrester, things go straight downhill from there. The cops are asking an awful lot of questions. The murder weapon turns up too close for comfort. And the attractive woman giving him the eye turns out to be Trudy Hauser, a cute-but-crazy deputy dead set on arresting him for murder.

Bo returned to Rhodes, an upstate New York college town, hoping to reconcile with his parents, gentle hippies who couldn’t accept his decision to join the Army at eighteen. Twenty years later, the commune where he grew up is a subdivision, and his parents are long gone. Pondering his next move, Bo takes a job driving a cab. And he has no clue how the bullet-riddled body of art philanthropist Fred Davies ended up in the trunk.

Now, he can’t turn around without bumping into Trudy--it’s not her case, but that’s not slowing her down. The local cops, suspecting robbery as the motive, are right behind her. When Daviesâ€.. (Read more) Finding a corpse in the trunk of your cab is a rotten way to start the day. For Bo Forrester, things go straight downhill from there. The cops are asking an awful lot of questions. The murder weapon turns up too close for comfort. And the attractive woman giving him the eye turns out to be Trudy Hauser, a cute-but-crazy deputy dead set on arresting him for murder.

Bo returned to Rhodes, an upstate New York college town, hoping to reconcile with his parents, gentle hippies who couldn’t accept his decision to join the Army at eighteen. Twenty years later, the commune where he grew up is a subdivision, and his parents are long gone. Pondering his next move, Bo takes a job driving a cab. And he has no clue how the bullet-riddled body of art philanthropist Fred Davies ended up in the trunk.

Now, he can’t turn around without bumping into Trudy--it’s not her case, but that’s not slowing her down. The local cops, suspecting robbery as the motive, are right behind her. When Davies’s beautiful widow asks Bo for help, he can’t say no. Starting his own investigation, he’s plunged into a world of privilege, corruption, and high-stakes greed. A lot of people had reason to want Davies dead: a flirtatious art history professor with a taste for booze and men; her insanely jealous, ex-felon husband; the business partner with a secret addiction; and an avant-garde artist who proclaims that murder is the ultimate art form.

As the body count escalates, Bo must combine the skills he learned as a soldier with the values he grew up with on the commune to flush out a vicious murderer--if he manages to stay alive that long.
(Less)

Tags

mystery, murder mystery, amateur sleuth, mystery humor, mystery novel, mystery romance, mystery detective, mystery amateur sleuth

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Reviews

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Review by: Alice Yeh on Oct. 22, 2012 :
It all starts with a simple traffic violation. Then they discover the body in the trunk. What follows is a desperate quest to clear the name of an innocent man, all of which seems to depend on gut instinct, a little army training, and sheer dumb luck. As the layers of illegal activity are revealed, it becomes exceedingly clear that Bo is in over his head.

My first response after finishing this book is that it was surprisingly wonderful. I wasn't in the mood for a murder mystery when I started it, but the story soon changed my mind. The characters were engaging, and I felt completely at ease in their (imaginary) company within the first few pages. The author took care to flesh out the main players on her stage, revealing moments of brilliance mixed in with instances highlighting their very human flaws. It helped me to connect with people like Trudy and Ryan in ways that I wouldn't have expected. Then again, what I was expecting was a slew of murder mystery stereotypes. This was one of those rare instances in which I was thrilled to be wrong.

As far as the mystery itself, the plot was well conceived. The author conducted her misdirection well, mixing in real clues with red herrings. One of my greatest pet peeves with murder mystery are illogical jumps in the would-be detectives' reasoning and plans of action. Bo's behaviors felt natural rather than forced, his thought processes believable and easy to follow. Some of his success fell upon serendipity rather than skill, but these events only required some light stretching of the imagination.

That brings us to the writing. Even in this plot-driven story, the tone and word choices made me feel as if I were inside of Bo Forrester's head. The pacing was, in a word, comfortable, and the dialogue was particularly well done. Within the span of a short conversation, I could get a feel for individual characters' personalities, even filtered through the mind of a biased storyteller whose freedom is on the line. You won't find much lyricism or poetic waxing here, but then, Bo isn't exactly the type.

Peace, Love, and Murder is one of those unexpected gems that one comes across every so often. There is much more that I could say in its favor, but in an effort to minimize spoilers, I will instead encourage readers to see for themselves.

Hide and Read
(Review copy provided by the author)
(reviewed long after purchase)

Review by: Angie Creech on May 11, 2011 :
Bo Forrester continues to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. It begins by a police officer finding a dead body in the trunk of his cab and escalates from there. This book had me interested the entire time, trying to figure out "who done it." A very good read.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

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