Thursday, April 20, 2023

Jeanne Reviews: The Fool Dies Last by Carol Miller


Sisters Hope and Summer run a shop in Asheville, NC, where they specialize in New Age items.  Summer is known for her teas and tinctures, while Hope reads palms and, until last February, Tarot cards.  Their day is interrupted by a man who claims that Summer’s potions are dangerous and accuses her of trying to kill his patient.

It turns out that the doctor is one Dylan Henshaw, the son of their grandmother’s beau, Morris.  Their day only goes downhill from there, with a shocking surprise for Summer, and the sudden death of an elderly lady who appears to have been poisoned. To make matters worse, the woman has a Tarot card—the Fool.

With their reputations at stake, the sisters have to try to solve the murder.

This is the first in the Fortune Telling Mysteries by Miller.  I had enjoyed her previous series, The Moonshine Mysteries, and had high hopes for this one.  I’m afraid I was underwhelmed with the characters and actively dislikes Dylan, who is being proposed as the love interest of one of the sisters despite being condescending and arrogant.  There was a kernel of a good idea in the mystery but I wasn’t quite sold on the solution.

The upside is that there is some interesting information on the Tarot and—even better—a very promising plot thread about the shop itself. The latter didn’t appear until near the end, but it did much toward redeeming the story for me.

This is a first in series book, so allowances must be made.  There’s a lot to do in setting up characters, relationships, and setting, so I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve read at least one more.

The books to date are:

The Fool Dies Last’

Death Rides a Pony 

The Moonshine Mysteries are:

Murder and Moonshine

A Nip of Murder

An Old Fashioned Murder


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