Guest Review: Murder Most Deserving (Lacetown Murder Mysteries #2) by Hank Edwards and Deanna Wadsworth

An acoustic music festival comes to Lacetown, and with it, another dead body—this one found at Fleishman’s Funeral Home. Michael recuses himself from the autopsy, handing the job over to his arch-nemesis from a neighboring county.

Luckily Michael and local hairstylist Jazz are closer than ever. Between a trio of funerals, a blowout BBQ, and a couple of trips on Beulah, Jazz’s beloved scooter, Michael and Jazz do some sleuthing of their own. With the first gruesome murder still fresh in their memories, they can’t help but wonder if notorious murderer and famous author Russell Withingham might be targeting them from jail, where he’s awaiting trial.

The festival, however, brings in a veritable lineup of potential killers, including a familiar—and most unwelcome—figure from their past. As the murderer circles ever closer to Jazz and Michael, Sheriff Musgrave is quick to remind them that everyone’s a suspect until Sheriff Musgrave says they’re not!

but really more like 2.75

Reviewer: Annery



I’m sorry. I can’t sugar coat it. The sophomore slump strikes again and I’m pretty disappointed.

This is the second book in the adventures of Michael and Jazz and takes place about two months after Murder Most Lovely. In that book they, and their small town were lovingly portrayed, imperfections notwithstanding, however the new book seems to suffer from multiple personality disorder, never sticking to a tone or theme. I know this is a review for Murder Most Deserving but I can’t see reading it without reference to the other and it suffers in comparison.

The previous book read like a small town murder mystery/cozy albeit with explicit sex. Michael and Jazz were two, older gay men, with imperfect bodies, life baggage yet full of the hopes, dreams, and fears like anyone their age. They were adorable and I was rooting for them all the way. This book is also nominally a mystery, though I had to think a moment of who got murdered, it was that unmemorable, and there is no real investigation by any party. What we get instead quaint scene settings of Lacetown denizens and places that add nothing to the story, and longer stretches of either Michael or Jazz thinking about the other, how lucky they are to have each other, missing each other after a few hours of separation (though that’s probably accurate of new lovers), but most egregious of all IMO is a out of character portrayal of their sex lives. I don’t like doing spoilers so all I’ll say is that the last thing I expected in a story that otherwise reads like a cozy, with almost cartoonish villains, was spanking. To me it didn’t ring true but maybe I’m wrong.

I still like Michael & Jazz very much, and I’ll probably read the next one in hopes this volume was a fluke, they deserve better. As usual YMMV.