Guest Review: The Lady Who Cried Murder by Lauren Carr

The Lady Who Cried Murder by Lauren Carr
Narrator: Mike Alger
Series: Mac Faraday #6
Published by Acorn Book Services on 8 March 2017
Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
Genres: Contemporary Fiction, Mystery/Thriller, Romance
Format: Audiobook
Source: Author

Fame comes at a price. Some pay with their privacy. Others pay with their pride. Khloe Everest paid with her life.

Determined to get her pretty face in front of the cameras, Khloe Everest fakes an abduction only to make a grand entrance in the midst of a press conference held by Spencer's Police Chief David O'Callaghan.

Three years later, after failing to catapult her notoriety into a long-lasting celebrity, Khloe Everest returns to Spencer upon her mother's sudden death and seemingly finds another weapon to propel herself into the spotlight. Unfortunately, someone kills her before she can make this entrance.

In Lauren Carr's sixth Mac Faraday Mystery, Mac and his friends come up against reality stars, politicians, has-beens, and wannabes. Mac also finds himself face-to-face with an old foe from his past who had managed to escape arrest during their last encounter. Now, Mac sees that his adversary has only become more powerful, and dangerous, with the passage of time.

Intent to not let this killer escape again, Mac and his friends need to put all of their talents together to put a stop to a cold-blooded lady killer.

©2013 Terri Lynn Zaleski (P)2017 Terri Lynn Zaleski

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Note: Even though this is Book 6 in the series, it works just fine as a stand alone.

Three years ago in Spencer, Maryland, young Khloe Everest was reported missing by her mom after she received a disturbing phone call. However, it turned out to be a publicity stunt and all of the the Spencer police felt a fool when Khloe strolled up during a press conference on the ongoing search for the young lady. Now, she’s planning another publicity stunt in order to relaunch her grab for fame and fortune. This time, things don’t go as she likes and she ends up dead. So many suspects, so little time.

David O’Callaghan, the Spencer Police Chief, isn’t too excited to be called in to check out Khloe’s current residence. The wannabe diva’s social media went dark 3 days ago but David still remembers the sting of her first publicity stunt. Grudgingly, he offers to check it out provided all cameras stay outside. What he finds is quite grisly and the murder investigation is launched.

This book was pretty good though not my favorite in the series. The investigation into Khloe’s murder along with David’s courtship of an old flame, Chelsea, are the two things that stood out to me. There’s also a politician (along with his son) that has some old beef with Mac Faraday (retired DC police detective). That mostly faded into the background for me.

Here is my one criticism for this book. There are some characters that are gay or cross dress and all the characters who do so are on the bad guy list. I can’t tell if the main characters believe that homosexuality or cross dressing are signs of deeper problems and nefarious behavior or not. I’m on the fence on this because I haven’t come across other gay characters before in this series (to my memory). At any rate, I would have preferred that the characters make it clear that there are bad guys that just happen to be gay and not that homosexuality is a trait of questionable behavior.

Back to Khloe. She did have a big bombshell of a secret that she was teasing her followers with, promising to announce it to the world on a specific date. Initially, David isn’t too sure she had any real secret but he has to investigate nonetheless. It was a big secret indeed! I was surprised by this twist and it added a note of seriousness to story. Someone is a real jerk and needs to be taken down!

Then there’s Chelsea. She’s got epilepsy so she has a service dog, Molly, who can sense her episodes coming on and warn her early. Chelsea and David had a relationship in high school and David messed up big time. Back then, he cheated on her and he has regretted that ever since. Now he has a second shot with her and he’s doing his best to prove his sincerity. However, Chelsea is afraid of putting her heart out there again and being hurt. It’s a touch/don’t touch relationship between the two throughout the book. For me, it didn’t have nearly as much appeal as Randi from Book 4. Poor David, I’m not sure he will ever meet the right woman.

Anyway, David and Mac pull strings and dig in the past, calling in Cameron (who we know from the Lovers in Crime series) with her case files that relate to this one. She brought her cat Irving who is a big coon cat that resembles a skunk in coloring. Irving makes me laugh. No one likes being screamed at all the time. Meanwhile, Gnarly dog and Molly make a very cute couple.

All told, it was good. I enjoyed the central mystery around Khloe the most. It was good to have the pets around for comedic relief.

I received a free copy of this book via iRead Book Tours.

The Narration: Mike Algers did a very good job with this book. His female voices were believable and his characters were all distinct. He was great at sounding like a real jerk when giving voice to the foul-mouthed bad guys.

This review first appeared on Dab of Darkness.

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