Book Review: Murder at a Scottish Social - Traci Hall

 


Murder at a Scottish Social - Traci Hall - 2.5 Stars - Not For Me, Disappointing

This is book 3 in the Scottish Shire series and while some parts were good, most of this I didn’t love. The story kicks off when a shortbread cookie kills the “Queen Bee” of a “competitive mom clique” and Paislee Shaw, owner of Cashmere Crush Sweater Shop becomes the sleuth to figure out who added peanut butter to a cookie to kill Kristen – who was deathly allergic to peanuts – and who hid her epi pen in the process.

Set in Scotland, I do like the setting and narrator with the Scottish accent. I also do like the main character of Paislee, her son Brody and her gramps with their Scottish terrier dog Wallace. What I couldn’t stand in this story was the circle of “mean girls” – which I guess is the point, but they got on my nerves so bad. They were spoiled mean girls who had everything and still were not happy. We have them continuously saying the woman that died, Kristen, was a “b” word and they were so nasty that it reminded me of high school girls. The mystery would have been ok, but I am just not connected with most of these characters like I am in other cozy mysteries.

The good parts of this show how important it is to appreciate the small things in life, money isn’t everything, wealth can ruin you and how the author stressed the need for food banks to help others in need. We also see Paislee dealing with issues with her son in school so more of the family aspect is shown and I did like that.

I also didn’t love this content --- we have a couple who are participating in an open relationship (WHYYY), another that had cheating going on, another that was “friends with benefits”. Also didn’t love the language – it wasn’t a ton but, them calling the woman that died names the whole time bothered me. At least it was talked about as being bad, but I didn’t love these things in the story. This book is just one that wasn’t for me, personally.

Other content warnings: 1 character with bulimia, 1 character with a drinking problem, 1 character who was seeing her psychiatrist as her now husband but started when she was 16 many years ago, it was mentioned it was inappropriate but wanted to mention it.

Goodreads Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5281755436

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