The Borrowed and Blue Murders

A Zoe Hayes Mystery #4

by Merry Jones

Zoe's got the dress and the flowers; she's even got the groom. Yes, in this fast-paced page-turner, Zoe Hayes is finally about to marry her detective beau, Nick Stiles.

Guests are gathering. Two of Nick's out-of-town, look-alike brothers crash at Zoe's house before the wedding, and, suddenly, Zoe has more on her mind than juggling her roles as mother, puppy-owner, hostess and bride-to-be. A female jogger is found murdered on her patio. It turns out that one of Nick's brothers has bumped into her on the sidewalk that very morning. Who is she? Why has she come into Zoe's back yard?

Not only that, an administrator from the Psychiatric Institute keeps calling even though Zoe is on a leave of absence from work. She assumes he wants to talk about her job, but, after he gets slammed by a car as he tries to speak to her on the street, she finds out that what he wants to discuss is far more frightening and deadlier than she could have imagined.

As the wedding date approaches, the body count grows, Nick's strange elusive third brother appears and vanishes, and dangers from all sides close in on Zoe and her children. People are not who they seem to be, and Zoe must protect her children, her wedding party and herself, even as the wedding guests gather and the family dresses for the nuptials.

Genres: Mystery

352 pages, Hardcover

First published September 16, 2008

About the author

AKA Merry Bloch Jones.

Merry Jones is a Book Excellence Award Finalist in Suspense (What You Don't Know), and a Best Book Award winner from American Book Festival (Child's Play.) She has been writing since she was old enough to hold a pencil. "If I don't write," she says, "over time, I get agitated and irritable, as if energy is building up inside and I have to let it out."

Accordingly, over the years, she has written a wide range of material, in a variety of styles and for diverse media. She began her career by spending about fifteen years writing and producing video and multi-media for corporate clients, but, when her second child was born in 1989, she decided to pursue her passion and began to write books.

Series:
* Zoe Hayes Mystery

Reviews

[Linda]

Shallow character development; implausible plot and action. This will be my last Merry Jones book.

[Victoria Goins]

Couldn't put it down!

[Guylene Milner]

Easy, fast read.

[Laren]

A week before her wedding, frazzled and tired new mother Zoe Hayes comes home to find a dead body on her back porch. Who was she, and why was she there? Of course Zoe can't resist finding out, even though her wedding planner is nagging her with final wedding details and her fiance's brothers are staying with them. This is another strong mystery from the author, with lots of red herrings thrown in as expected. But I can't help but be pertubed at the continuing parade of dead bodies this woman comes across which also means her daughter is subjected to them too. It is disturbing and distracting to the reader to know there is a 5 year old in the mix of murders the whole time. Couldn't we have a robbery next time? Or a dead body that the daughter doesn't see or find out about? Give that poor child a break already!

[Carol]

I read this for my mystery book club in Florida and enjoyed it. The book went fast, the chapters are short -one to three pages. Art therapist Zoe Hayes is getting married to Nick-his three brothers are visiting and she has a baby who she is breastfeeding and a six year old daughter-actually that would be enough for me but bad things are happening around her and she is trying to figure it out.. I would have enjoyed a little more about her art therapy world and a little less romance but that's just me. This was the last book in the series, I am looking forward to reading the earlier ones.

[Akeating2003]

Oh boy, this was not good. Giving it 2 stars because there was a little potential in it but the main character was all over the place - there is no rationale as to why she is marrying Nick since she clearly only loves her baby and her daughter. So many wild ideas, so many flip-flops in personality - don't want to put a spoiler but her reaction to dead people is ridiculous. And the brothers, absurd. nuff said.

[Susan]

This book is the fourth in a series about Zoe Hayes, a single mother who encounters murders in Philadelphia. I like these books for their local (to me) flavor and the fast-paced action. I found Zoe to be a little whiny and self-centered in this book, but that could perhaps be forgiven since she is finishing up the details for her wedding ceremony at the same time she investigates a murder.

[Mary Beth]

I was at the library and this author was tagged as the 21st century's Mary Higgins Clark. While not much of a MHC fan, I decided to check this out. Not much of a book.

[Mascanlon]

Zoe i is becoming a very complicated heroine.

[Cindy]

Ok, so now the main character doesn't even have to go out of her own house to find a body. ...Really? I mean...really??