Murder At Mother's by Maighread Mackay

 Engaging, Intriguing, Witty

Genre: Contemporary Fiction/Mystery/Fantasy

'Murder At Mother's' by Author - Maighread MacKay

Martha is a woman of means, advancing years, and a large family. She has plans for her sprawling, beautiful ranch. She is an animal lover, and as such, wants to leave an appropriate legacy for when, in time, she shuffles off this mortal coil. However, she knows that breaking this news to her family, particularly certain members, will be no easy task, much less persuading them to agree to it. But, she could never have imagined what lay ahead.

This is another, Fun and fascinating novel from Maighread Mackay, where the paranormal meets the present. I read the first of the 'Lake Scugog Mystery Series, last year, 'The Secret Of Stone Cottage', and was greatly looking forward to returning to the lives of Cissy and Becca. The novel however, begins and continues for a number of chapters, with a new set of characters, The Bancroft Family, and they really are a very diverse bunch of people. I particularly took to Percy, and also his mother, Adele. Percy sounded very British, (the setting is Canada) which is perhaps why I liked him. He is very well spoken, very snobbish, effeminate, and is the younger grandson of Martha Bancroft. He is very protective over his hyper-chondriacal mother and believes that he is on a path to musical stardom, akin to one of the great composers. Together, him and Adele treat the rest of the clan with contempt and feel that they are deserving of much more than they have. Adele is a martyr to her health and believes that she is deserving of a lavish lifestyle (courtesy of her mother-in-law), being the widow of Martha's eldest son. These two provide many of the moments that will make the reader smile. They all have their quirks, idiosyncrasies and eccentricities, and none of them appear capable of being pleasant, except for maybe Jared and Charli. The hostility amongst them provides some lighter, funny moments, not that the narrative is dark by any means.

When Cissy was re-introduced, it made me smile because I knew that Becca would not be far behind and to my delight, she ends up, shortly after, at Becca and David's House, where they are preparing for the twins 13th birthdays. It felt like re-visiting old friends, familiar and immensely comfortable to be back in that narrative with two Characters I was very fond of.

Gladys and Martha, two old souls eaves-dropping on conversations and Gladys's impatience when Martha insists on seeing out the Mystery to it's conclusion were also amusing.

Mixing a serious subject within a contemporary story line together with fantasy to provide lighter moments is something that this Author does very well.The format was a fairly large number of chapters, depending on what you're used to reading, however, each chapter is short. This is a format that works for me . If the chapters are long and difficult to get through, my attention starts to wander. I thoroughly enjoy Maighread's writing and the creativeness put into her characters, and I look forward to reading books 3 and 4 in due course.