A Fatal Fiction by Kaitlyn Dunnett

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Mikki Lincoln is a strong willed seventy year old who supplements her retirement income by working as a freelance book editor. Passionate about grammar and the use of words, Mikki has a few choice ones for Greg Onslow, an obnoxious entrepreneur who accuses her of trying to sabotage his latest project.  Their heated public confrontation goes viral thanks to someone with a handy cell phone, which creates problems later when Onslow turns up dead.

Despite a detective’s thoughts to the contrary, Mikki isn’t the only one with a motive. There’s a whole cast of characters who had reason to wish the man ill. For example, Mikki’s cousin Luke is in love with Onslow’s widow; Sunny Feldman, whose memoir Mikki is editing, was upset that Onslow wanted to raze her family’s old resort hotel; and Giselle, the aforementioned widow, doesn’t seem to be too deeply in mourning for her departed husband.  There’s also the matter of Onslow’s less than ethical business dealings, some of which end with investors paying the price while he got away unscathed.

Mikki sets out to find the real murderer, despite family interference.

This is Dunnett’s second series, following her Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries which features a young woman who owns a Scottish-themed shop. I’d read some of those and liked them, but I felt a more immediate connection with Mikki.  I don’t think it’s totally an age thing—more of an attitude admiration society.  Mikki is very independent in the best sense of the term, so she’s not best pleased when one of her nephews is sent to check up on her—er, visit for no particular reason for an unspecified amount of time.  I like that while Mikki is aging she’s still physically vigorous but practical enough to know her limitations.  She’s level-headed (well, most of the time) and thoughtful, but not one to be pushed around.  Some of her observations made me smile; calling herself a BMW was one of them.  (Big Maine Woman, though she has now moved to New York state.)

I found this to be a very enjoyable cozy mystery, and will definitely be reading more in the series. I’ll probably back up and read the first, but I had no problem following any of the story and feel it could be read as a standalone.

The other books in the series are:

Crime and Punctuation

Clause and Effect

A Fatal Fiction

Murder, She Edited