Murder in Death's Door County

by Elizabeth Jackie Rose

Everyone has had been stuck in a job they can't stand, right? In this cozy mystery, free-spirited Annie Malone needs to ditch her dull, drab job, but doesn't know how. She is in a rut. She needs a change, and fast. Thrown a lifeline from her moonlighting job as a ghostwriter, she packs her suitcase and heads up to idyllic Door County. Asked to ghostwrite a book for an impossible client by an almost-impossible editor, Annie wonders if she is in over her head. She needs the ghostwriting job, but is starting to suspect that all is not what it seems.

Then Annie's editor turns up dead, and her client goes missing. Amid the chaos, she makes fast friends with a bartender, Lizzy, and these two women sleuth to clear Annie's name. Suddenly, the whole story changes and Annie herself is in danger. To top it all off, a dark mysterious stranger, Donovan Archer, is trying to romance her. Is Donovan who he says he is, and can he help her find her missing client? Annie doesn't know who she can trust until it is almost too late...

Genres: Mystery, Cozy Mystery, Fiction

ebook

First published December 16, 2012

About the author

Elizabeth Rose hails from the beautiful state of Wisconsin. To get a taste for lovely Wisconsin, imagine a place where the temperature can fall from 80°F to 30°F within one day... oh, and throw in a tornado for good measure. But having four distinct seasons is wonderful (even if they do all occur within one day). She hopes you like the fictional "Murder in Death's Door County," which is the first book in the Annie Malone mystery series and very loosely based on a bad ghostwriting experience she had several years ago. Expect Book Two in the series to be released soon.

Reviews

[K.A. Krisko · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tiny, ditzy, klutzy author who can’t seem to get it right somehow gets herself involved with Major Bad Stuff in upstate Wisconsin. In the tradition of the inept protagonist who manages to solve the mystery despite herself, Annie stumbles through a series of ever-escalating mishaps, falls in love, and changes her own life. A combination mystery/romance, this book features detailed descriptions of Door County and its houses, villages, and landscapes. Obviously the author is familiar with the area, and some of her descriptions stuck with me, like the old, heavy, wooden doors in the Lighthouse Inn.

The book follows the standard mystery format, and I appreciate that it’s chock-full of female characters. There’s a neat juxtaposition of the friendly, caring, loving group of friends who support Annie and the disgusting, malevolent, Uber-Evil women of the Bad Side.

However, there are a few issues. The protagonist comes off as somewhat vapid, with her repeated use of “Oh my gosh!”, “Yummy!”, and “What the what?”. The technique of breaking the fourth wall and having the narrator speak in the present is fairly common, but it’s difficult to track, and several times the tense gets messed up; at least twice the narrator refers to herself as “she”. The timeline needs to be written out and followed; in several places, the author seemed to have forgotten how long ago an event occurred (for example, although it appears that her encounter with Donovan happened the day before, when they meet again, she refers to it as “the other day” and notes that his injury is healing). There is a lot of time spent describing the relationship with her grandparents, conversations about clothing and food, stories about the pasts of minor characters, much of which seems like filler. And when the narrator has to say how she is “stunned by the amazing coincidence”, it’s probably a deus ex machina, and you need to go back and foreshadow it.

These are all things that can be fixed with a little work. However, there’s a more serious issue. Many readers of mysteries and crime stories are police buffs, detective fans, or law enforcement officers (as am I). The author needs to do some real research into police procedure, because there are some serious and obvious issues with Miranda, detention, interrogation and interview procedures, Tasers, non-existent sectors of the FBI, and more, and these will be noticed by regular mystery and crime readers. This kind of stuff takes some real research and in-depth understanding, or a friendly officer who likes to edit/ghost-write, but it’s vital to producing a believable story. And no FBI officer is going to take a threatened witness along to help him interview someone who is possibly involved in multiple murders. He’d lose his job so fast it would make your head spin, not to mention blow his case.

This book has promise: female protagonists, unique environment, well-described scenery, multiple characters who are well-differentiated, the mystery-story format. I hope the author takes another crack at it, and I also see that the door’s been left open for sequels.

[Shalini Ayre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frustrated with her office job, Annie Malone in a dream like state yells at the thorn in her side, Tessa, politely telling her where to go and hands in her notice. Despite the beer and pizza later that evening, panic sets in - her other (real) job as a ghostwriter is not as lucrative as she'd hoped, so now what? Then she remembers to call her editor Harry back about a new writing job.

With a princely sum offered to Annie, Harry asks her to ghostwrite for a man who is somewhat difficult. As she asks more questions, Harry becomes evasive - what is he holding back from her? Jumping at the chance at both the work and the money, Annie agrees. But there's a stipulation - she has to move to Door County as her client, one Marcus Ladrostassis, believes she will have a better feel of his story if she stays in the idyllic county.

Moving and living at the Lighthouse Inn, Annie starts her work. But she soon realizes that interviewing Marcus is impossible and that his temper and even sanity is very questionable. When Harry announces that he will visit her she is surprised when he blows up at her and he so called treatment of her client. The next morning as she hurries to meet Harry for their scheduled 9am meeting, Annie discovers him dead in a pool of bathwater.

Along with help from her new found friend Lizzy they undertake some amateur sleuthing only to be stopped by the handsome insurance agent Donovan who isn't who he says he is. What exactly happened to Marcus Ladrostassis, why is Cindy the waitress at the Lighthouse Inn so nasty to her and who can she really trust in Door County? With explosions, mysterious blondes and threats to her life, will Annie be able to solve the mystery surrounding her ghostwriting gig?

Written in first person, Rose's story is quirky, funny and enjoyable. Whilst the main character doesn't seemingly have a lot of courage, she is able to rise above it in times of need and stand up for herself - or faint! Yes, Annie faints at the the most crucial times but it's all part of who she is. The author's characters are robust that add a good depth to this mystery. The dialogue is expressive and even though some areas touch on the surreal, the story is good and keeps you interested throughout.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this murder mystery. The author has created a distinctive main character and even though I found some of her behavior a tad annoying, I couldn't help but like her. The plot has some twists and unexpected red herrings and throw in a love interest, you have a good all round story. A recommended read.

I received a complimentary copy of the book to review from the author. The opinions expressed are my own and I am not required to give a positive critique.

[Bam cooks the books · Rating 2 out of 5]

A cozy mystery set in the month of October in Door County, Wisconsin, a peninsula jutting out of the eastern side of the state, with Green Bay on the western shore and Lake Michigan on the eastern shore. It is a popular tourist destination because of its quaint villages and natural beauty.
This was offered as a free ebook download for Kindle last December and I saved it to read until we made a trip to Door County ourselves this past week to enjoy the fall colors. It was fun reading about the places we were visiting: Sturgeon Bay, Bailey's Harbor, Sister Bay, Fish Creek, Egg Harbor and Peninsula State Park.
I have to say that the book itself was a bit of a disappointment though. The writing felt forced, perhaps because the dialog seemed unnatural. I knew who the killer was immediately when the character was introduced (big red flag!) so to me the mystery was thin and predictable. The characters were likeable but way too ditzy for my taste.
I did learn one interesting fact about Door County: that the peninsula was originally called 'Death's Door County' because of the large number of lives lost in shipwrecks in the dangerous strait between Washington Island and Gills Rock on the northernmost tip of the peninsula. (And also the reason for the large number of lighthouses to be seen in the area, which were used to warn sailors.) Apparently the county's name was changed to make it seem more inviting, less sinister, eh?
The story gets 2 stars from me because it was a fun, easy vacation read set in a location I enjoyed visiting. But please, Jackie Rose, have someone with an English degree proofread the text next time you prepare to publish a book. There were several missing/duplicate words and grammatical/spelling errors. These things matter, as they affect the total reading experience.

[Iris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually enjoyed the storyline, but I was so very disturbed by the errors! Very poor editing! Quite an unacceptable number of grammatical errors.

[Kathy Schouten · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short, fun, cozy mystery set in Door County (one of my favorite places). I loved the setting and Annie was just ditzy enough to be fun.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Can’t wait to read more by this author!!

[S.J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joanne, Annie to her friends, has a job in business which she hates and finds largely incomprehensible, and moonlights as a ghostwriter. When her publisher, Harry, offers her a large fee with a bonus to move and ghostwrite for a mysterious client she literally dances around the room with joy. Excited by her opportunity to ghostwrite full time, Annie quits her day job and moves to Door County and into The Lighthouse Inn. There she finds murder, more mystery than she can handle even with a flock of new, solicitous friends, and romance.

The good:
The plot has plenty of twists and enough characters to keep the story going. It is very heavy on dialog, which makes for easy reading, and much of it is cute, as is some of the narration (done solely by Annie). I enjoyed some of the breezy humor and the author’s use of local knowledge to make the setting real.

The bad:
Main characters, especially when they are also first-person narrators, can make or break a book for a reader. At intervals throughout the novel, thirty-year-old Annie stomps her feet, swoons, and bursts into tears. At one point she yells at a man because she doesn’t want to apologize when she opens her car door and gives him a bloody nose. She is cute. She describes The Lighthouse Inn as cute. A bit too much of the dialogue and narration are cute.

Getting into a story requires a certain level of sustained belief in all elements. Murder in Death’s Door County began adroitly enough, but when the main characters began interacting with various law officers as the mystery progressed, the story lost too much credibility for me. I kept thinking, they’d never do that, and that makes no sense.

The book could use an edit. There are missing words, awkward constructions, some repetitive wording, and overuse of commas. An example: “Once I gave the universal sign that I was ready to order (putting a closed menu back on the table, or bar), Lizzy stopped by and took my order.”

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Henry Simpson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to the author’s clear description, the plot of this mystery is no mystery: the protagonist leaves steady employment to pursue a high-paying freelance ghostwriting gig, experiences difficulties with the client, meets new people, client is murdered, her life is endangered, romance, etc. If the plot was all that mattered, end of question time. However, what the plot does not tell you much about are the storytelling or characters, which make all the difference. As to storytelling, Rose’s Cozy starts thus: “Toothpicks would work, I thought, as I sat in the most boring meeting known to mankind. Tape, too. Tape would help hold the toothpicks in.” What? The next sentence reveals that the toothpicks would be used to prop open the narrator’s eyelids. That clever opening grabbed me, and the author held my attention from there to the end with internal monologue, realistic dialogue, and action.

As to character, I was captivated by Annie, the main character, who comes to life on the very first page. She reminded me of the George Lass character in DEAD LIKE ME, a sort of ditzy young woman who works in a cubicle in a highly regimented office with all the usual politics and annoying people. She hates her job, is not very good at it, and jumps at the chance to quit and work on her own.

And so she does, takes a risk, complications occur, and she must deal with them. She has social skills, quickly makes friends, and soon gets help, but she didn’t take the writing gig to solve a murder, and is out of her depth. So, the fun in this book is watching her contend with the challenge. Along the way, we meet a cast of local characters—friendly, hostile, and questionable—and Annie searches for clues, gets into a few tight spots, and has adventures. She also has a hilarious dream in which all the human characters are transformed into speaking animals. All ends well, of course. This is a cozy, after all, with mostly nice people, language, and behavior (excepting murder).

A fun read. Highly recommended to Cozy fans.

[LORI CASWELL · Rating 4 out of 5]

Annie has a job she hates but moonlights as a ghostwriter and she loves that job. Unfortuately she doesn���t make enough to pay the bills. When she gets an offer to ghost write a book for a client her editor warns her is a challenge she has a decision to make. The money offered is higher than she ever imagined and it would allow her to quit her day job. The one stipulation is that she must move to Door County to work with the client. Decision made, she quits her job, packs a bag and heads to The Lighthouse Inn hoping she hasn’t made a huge mistake.

Just a few days after she arrives her editor comes for a visit and within hours he is found dead in his room at the inn and Annie becomes the prime suspect. With the help of her new Door County friends Annie will try to find the killer before she finds herself at Death’s Door.

Dollycas’s Thoughts

This is a fun debut for the Annie Malone series. Annie is a unique protagonist. She has wonderful intentions but when she gets in a bit of hot water or when she sees something a little unpleasant she faints dead away. She also has a tendency to babble on when she is nervous or in awkward situations. She is not the smoothest amateur sleuth out there but she is really easy to love both by the reader and a certain gentleman who comes to her rescue more than once.

One of my favorite places to visit in Wisconsin is Door County. Elizabeth Rose has captured the setting perfectly. It was so easy to picture exactly Annie was or where she was going.

Rose also added a very clever twist to the story in addition to the usual red herrings found in a mystery like this. A interesting surprise and a great foundation for moving the series forward. It is also written in a way that will have you unable to put it down. It is fast paced and easily read in one sitting.

Cozy readers will enjoy this trip to Wisconsin’s Door County, I sure did.

[Joseph Finley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard of a "cozy" mystery before I picked up this book. Imagine my surprise when, thanks to Wikipedia, I discovered it’s a whole subgenre of fiction. From what I've read, “cozies” generally involve an amateur sleuth solving a murder in some quaint and sociable setting. Violence is downplayed (or nonexistent) in favor of a more lighthearted or humorous tale. If that's a fair definition of a cozy mystery, then “Murder in Death's Door County” fits the bill.

The protagonist, Annie Malone, is a disgruntled office-worker and part-time ghostwriter for a vanity press who quits her job after receiving an offer to ghostwrite a biography for a mysterious ex-con. Annie travels to Door County, Wisconsin, to meet her hard-to-reach client, who lives in a little lakeside town that is full of quirky characters. Everything is going great until Annie’s editor turns up dead, leaving Annie and her new friend Lizzy to solve the crime.

The book is a breezy, super-quick read. There’s just enough mystery, silliness, and romance to keep the story moving. And while the author drops clues to the murderer's identity, they are subtle enough to keep the reader guessing to the very end. If you prefer thrillers or more suspenseful mysteries, then this book – and probably cozies in general – may not be quite your cup of tea. I, however, found it to be a brief and amusing diversion from the type of fiction I normally read, and cozy fans may like it even more.

[Kathryn Svendsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read about a not-so-brilliant protagonist named Annie Malone who takes a ghostwriting job when she quits her very boring job in Milwaukee. Offered an exorbitant amount to interview a difficult client and write his book, she is required to move to Door County. Her editor comes up to meet with her and Annie finds him dead in his bathtub the next morning.

Annie and her new friend Lizzie decide to investigate the murder and all sorts of crazy things start to happen. Filled with descriptions of the area, you can visualize the quaint villages and towns in Door County, perhaps inspiring you to visit there on a holiday.

Not all the events and details make sense and there are several spelling/editing/proofreading errors in the book. For example, no real FBI agent would take a murder suspect on an investigation with him. However, the book was still very interesting and the characters likable. This was a very clean mystery/romance novel.

I gave it 3 stars.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the author for a fair and honest review. A free copy does not influence my opinion. All thoughts are my own.

[L.M. Montes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the character, Annie Malone, to be likeable as I got more into the book. The story itself was good, and I see much potential with it. However, much needs to be done to fix it. There were many grammatical mistakes and words missing from sentences, which made the sentences make no sense at all. Additionally, the time sequence in places was way off. For example, at one point Donovan tells Annie that he is interviewing a witness at 10 am the next day and asks her if she would like to go with him. She says yes. In the next scene when he picks her up the next day it is mentioned that Donovan came at noon to pick her up (hmmmmm). After the interview is finished, they drive back to the Lighthouse Inn. When they reach the Inn it is stated that the time is 11:30 am and that they should get some lunch. Lastly, more research needs to be done in regards to police procedures. I don't think it's proper police procedure to take the person you're protecting/a witness to question another witness.

[Anne Carlisle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murder in Death's Door County is the first volume of a cozy mystery series about a Milwaukee writer named Annie Malone. The author is off to a very good start after some revising. I enjoyed the premise. Annie has been looking for a way out from the mind-numbing cubicle work life she leads. And she has some family-related quirks (such as a fear of parrots). When taking on a lucrative ghostwriting gig in idyllic Door County, she unknowingly becomes involved in a criminal plot, masterminded by a criminal posing as well-to-do vanity publisher. The bad guy is thinking he can use her in nefarious matters coming to a head, but he doesn't know Annie.. The novel is told in the charming, first person voice of Annie herself, who realizes something is askew when her editor dies and her difficult client goes missing. The plot thickens as she finds herself a prime suspect and the recipient of threats from the killer. With the help of a new friend, Lizzie, we're off and running with delightful amateur sleuthing. An enjoyable read!

[Vivek · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Annie Malone could seriously turn into the next Nancy Drew. At 140 odd pages it’s just the right length and moves on quickly enough.

Ditching her desk job in very interesting fashion, Annie Malone goes full time into ghost writing hoping against hope that the money she makes will be enough for her to eke out an existence. She ends up in a quaint town in Wisconsin where the story really begins to take off.

Charged with the murder of her boss and on being told that she cannot leave town, she desperately has to find her way out of the mess that fell into her lap rather inconveniently.

For a first attempt, the author has done a fine job. At times the story and alibis get a little too thin but the end more than makes up for it. There are a few editing errors. In the next book on Annie Malone I expect the author to take her story telling exploits up another notch. She has the ability and I know she’ll deliver.

[Tami · Rating 3 out of 5]

Haven't received my copy yet, just received notice I had won. 10/3/13
Received my copy and can't wait to get started. I have my current read ahead. 10/14/13
Started 11/3/13 and finished 11/4/13

Annie wants to leave her dull cubicle dwelling job and when Harry calls her to ghost write a book with an offer for 5 times the normal fees, she sees her opportunity. She heads up to Door County. The subject of her book is impossible, and things start to get scary. Harry ends up dead, the subject is missing, and there is the mysterious Donovan and Annie isn't sure how he fits in to it all.

This book is a who-dun-it lite. More of a light romance novel with a murder mystery sort of thrown in there. The characters are okay and the story line is interesting enough to keep reading. Probably a good beach read, nothing to dark and dangerous.

[Rebekah Bryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read, and the suspense kept me interested until the end. I was very curious how everything was going to be wrapped up and what the deal was with all these mysterious characters. Marcos was a hoot, and her editor guy (Harry?) was pretty funny, too. I wasn't sure which way Donovan was going to go - whether he was going to end up a "bad guy" or not. While the story was good, I didn't connect with the voice and main characters as much. Some of the language the main character used (whose name I already forgot...oops) took me out of the story sometimes. But otherwise, it was a fun little mystery for someone who doesn't usually read mysteries!

[Steven Donoso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murder in Death's Door County is a fun mystery with some quirky characters who are easy to like. Annie Malone takes off for a ghostwriting assignment in Door County, Wisconsin, but finds there is much more to the project than meets the eye. The mystery and characters are engaging and it's pretty impossible not to end up rooting for Annie and her friends. This is a book that you could enjoy reading on a beach towel or in a warm bath, assuming you don't a have a habit of dropping things!

[MARIA Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually really enjoyed this book when I finally got round to reading it. I think the cover put me off starting it, as it reminded me of a mills and boon romance cover and not the contempory witty thriller it actually is! Loved the main character and the storyline look forward to reading more about Annie Malone!

[RACHEL · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Goodreads First Reads prize introduces Annie Malone a young spunky ghost writer who finds herself in the middle of a murder case that is tied to larger more complicated case. This cozy mystery begins a promising series.

[Hannah Cannady · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is literally the worst book I've ever read. I only read it because it takes place in Door County, which I love and have visited countless times, but the book has literally nothing to do with Door County. Everything that happens in his books is ridiculous and quite frankly, stupid.

[Susan Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a fun, quick read. However, I cannot recommend this book because of the many missing words, repeated words, and typos which were very distracting and annoying.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book very much. It was suspenseful as well as a great story line. The characters were also great.

[Katrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book in a contest, and I am so glad I did. I really enjoyed it. The setting was great. I really liked the characters. It was a good book.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this cozy mystery, surprised at the end!

[Marilyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a good story and I enjoyed it. I had some problem with the editing as some words were left out of sentences. Otherwise, it's worth a read.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Cozy mystery. A hilarious read with mystery in the mix. It was another must read cozy.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 stars
Pending review

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hated it. Idiotic characters. Ridiculous plot.