2014;
268 pages. Book 4 (out of 6, plus a
novella) of the “Dead Red Mystery” series. New Author? : No. Genre : Crime Mystery; Women Sleuths; Cozy. Overall Rating : 7½*/10.
It hasn’t been the best day of Lalla Bain’s
life. Her fiancé Caleb Stone has just
left her standing at the altar on their wedding day. She didn’t even get a phone call from him, nor
is he answering her calls to him. She’d
call the cops, but Caleb is the local sheriff.
Still,
all is not lost. Despite the cancellation, Aunt Mae still gave her
a wedding present, one of a unique nature.
It’s the title to a plot of land down in some hole-in-the-wall town
called Wishbone, Arizona. Supposedly it
has an adobe house on it, plus a barn and a shed. So kind of a mini-ranch.
Lalla currently resides in the Modesto, California area, but
maybe a field trip to wherever-it-is Wishbone is just what she needs to forget
about that scalawag Caleb. Her dad says
he’d be happy to go along with her to check the place out, because there’s one
other part of the property that’s piqued his interest. It’s said to have a mine on
it. And who knows, it might be a gold
mine!
Or
maybe it's just a small mine pit. That’s a
fancy name for a hole in the ground.
What’s To Like...
A Dead Red Alibi
is the fourth book in R.P. Dahlke’s Dead Red Mystery series. The first three books were all set in the Modesto
area, so it was neat to see the author take us to a new location - the desert in the extreme
southeastern area of Arizona. To boot, it
appears this will be a permanent relocation, and since I live in Arizona, this means Lalla’s moving to my stomping grounds!
The
plotline is straightforward. Lalla and
Pops arrive just as two bodies are discovered, one on her newly-acquired
property, the other at an art compound next door. Lalla’s
cousin Pearlie flies in and the two of them pretend to be private investigators
while Dad, much more of a skilled carpenter than either of them, begins to fix up the ranch. While doing this, he discovers a vintage
racing car in the barn, an old Italian Bugatti. You can see its silhouette
on the book’s cover.
AFAIK,
the town of Wishbone is fictional, but the nearby city, Sierra Vista, is quite
real. My company used to sell various
chemicals to a copper mine located there.
The two murder-mysteries are well-constructed, and I repeatedly changed
my mind about who the most likely suspect(s) might be. The dialogue felt a bit less snarky
compared to the earlier books in the series, but that’s okay; there’s still wit
aplenty.
As
usual, everything builds to a suitably exciting ending, with a few twists
added in to keep you on your toes.
This is one of those books where you can walk alongside Lalla and
Pearlie and try to figure out whodunit before they do.
A Dead Red Alibi is a fast and easy
read, told from a first-person point-of-view (Lalla’s). There’s a bit of blood, but not much; and a
cussword here and there, but those too are few and far between. I’d call this an “almost cozy”, and an
excellent choice for a “airport/beach read”.
Excerpts...
“Let’s drive into
Wishbone,” I said, grabbing my purse.
“We’ll get a couple of rooms and come back when the electricity is on.”
“If the load is getting easy, you’re going
downhill,” he quipped.
“Not from where
I’m standing. There are wild animals out
there. If you’ll give me the Jeep keys,
I’ll drive.”
He had his hands
on his hips. “Now Lalla, just remember, People don’t fail, they give up. You knew we were going to have to rough it for
a day or two. Where’s your pioneering
spirit?”
I snapped my
fingers, signaling for the keys.
“Pioneers yearned for hot baths and clean sheets, too. Now gimme those keys!” (loc. 316)
“What’s this about
Pearlie being here in Arizona?” Caleb asked.
“She flew Aunt
Mae home, turned around, and flew back to Sierra Vista. She’s got some whacked idea we’re going to
start our own P.I. business.”
“You have to have
a license for that,” said Caleb.
“She has a way of
ignoring those pesky little issues.” (loc.
1376)
Kindle Details...
A Dead Red Alibi currently sells for $3.99 at Amazon, as do
the rest of the books in the series, with the exception of Book 1, A Dead Red Cadillac, which sells for $2.99. The novella, A
Dead Red Horse Thief, goes for $0.99. The first three books in the series are also
available in a bundle for $5.99.
Karma had once again spun around and kicked me in the head. (loc. 948)
There
were a couple drawbacks, but they're the technical variety, not literary.
First and foremost, A Dead Red Alibi
is in dire need of good editing. One
Amazon reviewer complained that almost every page had a typo; I don't think he's exaggerating. I can overlook the ones of the
lose/loose
and waved/waived
ilk, but when a character’s name changes from Mac Coker to Mac Cocker,
that’s just plain sloppy. Ditto for the
lack of commas when addressing someone (“Come on Caleb”). And we desert rats refer to
ourselves as Arizonans,
not Arizonians,
although I have to say, Google seems to be okay with both.
The
formatting is also weak, most noticeably when Kindle splits a word at the end
of a line in the middle of a sentence.
Properly, the division should be between two syllables, but here at
times just the final (and non-syllabic) letter was split off. Admittedly, this sort of thing is hard to
spot during the proofreading; it all depends on what font size you’ve selected.
Finally, and least important yet most bizarre, one of the victims, a
dead-&-dumped police chief, is never cited by name despite being spoken of numerous times along the way. I’ve never encountered
this before. R.P. Dahlke uses the real names of
a pair of her acquaintances for two of the characters, and points out that she
received their permission to do so.
Perhaps there was a third person who, at some late point, refused her
permission to use his name. I can’t
think of any other explanation.
7½ Stars.
If you can ignore the editing/formatting
weaknesses, and you like sleuths such as Stephanie Plum and
Sookie
Stackhouse, then you’ll enjoy A Dead Red Alibi, and this series as a whole.
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