I Only Read Murder by Ian and Will Ferguson

 

Review of I Only Read Murder by Ian and Will Ferguson

Two brothers have teamed up to write this comic cozy mystery. The title refers to a bookshop that sells only murder mysteries, but the real action (other than the conclusion) takes place in a community theatre on the Oregon coast.  A washed-up TV star (How’s that for comedy?) named Miranda Abbott, who had been a star playing a clerical detective named Pastor Fran, is down on her luck and takes off to Happy Rock to see if her husband (the main writer on her long defunct TV series) will take her back.  The town theatre just happens to be producing their yearly murder mystery and Miranda ends up at auditions.  There she finds a motely group of theatre types that are drawn from the stereotypes more expertly portrayed in plays such as The Play That Goes Wrong or Noises Off.  We have a weird director, a Prima Donna actress, a mousy stage manager, an over-dedicated set builder, and on and on. Miranda ends up with a small part in the show, but the big event is the death of the star on stage on opening night. It takes an excruciatingly long time in the book to get to the murder and once we do get there, it becomes a pretty much traditional figuring out who in the company did the deed. Some of the jacket comments claim the characters are funny and lovable. I found them mostly over the top caricatures and uninteresting. I prove this contention by telling you when I reached the last chapters, I chose to turn off the light and go to sleep rather than spending ten more minutes to find out who the culprit was. 

I give it a 2 out of 5