Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Early in Daheim's sprightly 28th cozy featuring Seattle B and B innkeeper Judith McMonigle Flynn (after 2012's The Wurst Is Yet to Come), an old friend of Judith's, Ruby Tooms, arrives at Hillside Manor. Ruby wants Judith's husband, retired cop Joe Flynn, to help find the person who murdered her mother, Opal, years earlier, before DNA testing. Judith, whose admirers created a Web site celebrating her detective adventures, has vowed to stay away from criminal investigations in order to concentrate on her family and her business, but she soon becomes involved in the search for Opal's killer. As usual, Judith's best friend, Renie Jones, lends a hand. Series fans will relish the author's trademark humor (e.g., "I hate it when people get mixed up and think the acronym for Female Amateur Sleuth Tracking Offenders isn't FASTO, but FATSO"). Agent: Maureen Moran, Maureen Moran Agency. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Innkeeper Judith Flynn tackles her 28th homicide investigation. Judith's retirement from amateur sleuthing (The Wurst Is Yet to Come, 2012, etc.) lasts only until Hillside Manor guest Ruby Tooms checks in. Ruby wants to know who strangled her mother, Opal, 15 years ago. Since the unsolved murder took place in Seattle's Thurlow District, where Judith grew up and where her first husband, Dan, ran the Meat Mingle Cafe into bankruptcy, Judith is forced to revisit her old haunts. She drags along her acerbic cousin Renie and gets a helpful boost from her second husband, Joe, a retired cop eager to solve the very first case his ex-partner Woody worked on. Ruby, however, is not the ideal client. She mistakenly lands on the neighbors' doorstep in a drunken stupor with no memory of how she got there or what happened to her purse and cellphone. After a break-in at the BB and a hit-and-run that claims a neighbor, Ruby packs her suitcase and vanishes into the night. A firefighter called to subdue a garden flare-up Judith has started turns out to be related to Opal's past, which included several flirtations, a stint as a caregiver in a nursing home and a lost son disinclined to learn any more about his mom's demise. Judith's uncle Al puts the girls onto possible links with racetrack stalwarts, and Judith keeps bumping into a certain horse trainer. She also learns who got the proceeds from a winning ticket and how they were spent, facts which do not help her solve the murder, which involves another kind of jealousy entirely. Judith's mother is as abrasive as ever, but the inn's cocktail nibbles are tasty and the plot palatable.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.