Bowled
Over
A Maggie Kelly
Mystery
Kasey Michaels
Kensington Books (Trade Paperback)
ISBN-10: 0-7582-0884-7 (0758208847)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7582-0884-2 (9780758208842)
Publication Date: November 2007
List Price: $14.00
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Mystery author Maggie Kelly had enough on her
mind wondering how she was going to keep her fictional Regency Era
creation from dropping to one knee with a marriage proposal. Then a
murderer crosses the foul line—way too close to home
…
Another day, another crime scene.
Maggie wouldn’t mind putting a little distance between
herself and the hunky Regency hero of her novels, Alexandre Blake, the
Viscount Saint Just, who has miraculously come to life with talk of
sweeping her straight down the aisle. But now that her parents have
split up, Maggie is having trouble resisting Alex’s tender
loving care. So she invites him along to visit her family.
Unfortunately, they arrive just in time to watch her father being taken
away in handcuffs as a murder suspect!
Thank goodness she has her very own romance hero.
The local police are convinced Evan Kelly has killed his bowling buddy,
who happened to be having an affair with Maggie’s mom. It
doesn’t help that Evan’s bowling ball was found
next to the dead body. Her dad may have had motive, but Maggie knows
he’s definitely no killer. Luckily, she has Alex riding to
the rescue—and making her wonder if a happily ever after
might not be out of her league after all …
Review:
Bowled
Over is the sixth (and according to the author, the last)
romantic - comedy - mystery in the Maggie Kelly series by Kasey
Michaels. This time the crime hits close to home when Maggie's father
is accused of murder!
New readers of this series are likely to be confused by the
relationships between the principal characters, so the author tries to
provide an introduction. Maggie Kelly is the author of historical
mysteries featuring the dashing Regency-era aristocratic detective
Alexandre Blake, the Viscount Saint Just. Although originally just a
character on the pages of her books, Alexandre (Alex) has come to life
and brought with him his faithful friend and assistant Sterling Balder.
Alex and Sterling live in a condo adjacent to Maggie's in Manhattan and
share in her adventures. In Bowled
Over, the trio travel to New Jersey for the Christmas holidays
with Maggie's family only to find her father, Evan, arrested for
killing a bowling buddy, Walter, Evan's bowling ball being the murder
weapon. Naturally it falls to Maggie and Alex to find out who really
killed Walter.
This series has (had) a clever gimmick but the author (or maybe the
publisher or editor) allowed it, the gimmick, to become more important
than the characters or the plots. When Alex was new to the 20th, and
later 21st, century, it was a treat to watch him get acquainted with
the modern world in which he was living and his new-found knowledge was
often incorporated directly into the plots. When he and Maggie were
sparring with each other, there was a romantic tension that enhanced
the storyline but never became the story. But in Bowled Over and the
previous book in this series, Alex no longer sees the world through
Regency eyes, and as a result he's become rather tedious. Worse still
is the relationship between Alex and Maggie which now lacks the spark
evident in the earliest books and seems strained and contrived.
Are Maggie's adventures real? Or are they imagined, and is each book in
the series merely Maggie's previously written fictional book
within an idea for another book to be written? An intriguing
possibility. But readers late to the series will no doubt find Bowled Over
perplexing and not only for the gimmick for it's all a bit
overwhelming. Better yet, start with Maggie Needs an Alibi
(the "A" book in what was clearly intended to be an alphabet sequence
until the fourth book was inexplicably renamed) before judging this one.
Special thanks to Book Trends for providing an ARC of Bowled Over for this review.
Review Copyright © 2007 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
Mysteries in this series ...
Maggie Needs an
Alibi
Kensington (Hardcover), July 2002
ISBN-10: 1-57566-879-3 (1575668793)
Maggie by the
Book
Kensington (Hardcover), August 2003
ISBN-10: 1-57566-881-5 (1575668815)
Maggie Without a
Clue
Kensington (Hardcover), August 2004
ISBN-10: 1-57566-883-1 (1575668831)
High Heels and
Homicide
Kensington (Trade paperback), December 2005
ISBN-10: 0-7582-0880-4 (0758208804)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7582-0880-4 (9780758208804)
High Heels and
Holidays
Kensington (Trade paperback), October 2006
ISBN-10: 0-7582-0882-0 (0758208820)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7582-0882-8 (9780758208828)
Bowled
Over
Kensington (Trade paperback), November 2007
ISBN-10: 0-7582-0884-7 (0758208847)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7582-0884-2 (9780758208842)
Omnimystery keywords for Bowled Over ...
Location(s) referenced: New York City, New Jersey.