Knee High by the Fourth of July by Jess Lourey #BookReview #TuesdayBookBlog

Murder by Month Mystery Book 3

Book Blurb:

Independence Day comes with fireworks, a budding romance, and hometown murder in this sharp and witty mystery by Edgar Award–nominated author Jess Lourey.

When Fourth of July weekend coincides with Wenonga Days—the annual celebration of a locally famous Ojibwe leader—the town of Battle Lake double-dips on the tourist trade. This year the hullabaloo hasn’t even started and there’s already a story for reporter Mira James.

The Chief Wenonga statue has disappeared, leaving behind drops of human blood and a big question for Mira: How and why would anyone steal a twenty-three-foot monument? Things go from curious to worse when a local man is kidnapped. And from worse to downright gruesome when a corpse is found in the lakeside cabin of a horticultural hottie Mira’s been crushing on from afar.

Mira has no choice but to trail a statue thief, find a missing person, and clear an earthy dreamboat’s name from a murder charge. Not to mention risk her own life to unmask a cold-blooded killer.

My Review:

Yes, it’s Book 3 of the series, and no, I haven’t read the first or second, but see there are quite a number of them, changing slightly from Mystery (number) to Romcom Mystery (number). This one caught my eye because of the saying; it’s one very familiar in our area as well and the timing was perfect—I read it over the July 4^th long weekend.

“Farm mythology declared that if the corn was knee high by the Fourth of July, it’d be a bumper crop.”

Mira as a reporter for a weekly newspaper in the tiny town of Battle Lake is rather a scatterbrain and I don’t remember exactly how she got the position as she is also supposed to be the local librarian. In a town that size, I suspect they don’t necessarily have to be there all the time as Mira seems free to go about her investigation with little problem.

The focus this installment is the theft of the Chief Wenonga statue, some 23’ of him, leaving behind a base with obvious blood drops. I like the atmospheric location of the little town in Minnesota, apparently an actual lake town, and wonder how they feel about the way they are portrayed in the series.

I thought it was an interesting storyline, although I wondered about the July weather sounding more like Florida than Minnesota, and the quirky characters made for some snappy, snarky dialogue. It wasn’t so much the mystery as the writing style, phrases, colloquial words I hadn’t seen or heard in a long, long time that gave me a chuckle and kept me turning pages.

On the whole, a rather simplistic cozy with a side focus on gardening and animals (dog and cat) rather than food and recipes and very light on the romcom side of cozy. Thank you!

I enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and found it to be a fast, easy read. Yes, it bends toward silly but I see these are rereleases of books published much earlier with the month theme. Okay, then I’ll have to check out August Moon—whenever it’s released—and give this one 3.5 stars rounded to 4.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the author and publisher through @NetGalley that in no way influenced this review. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Rating: Three point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Heist Thrillers, Mystery Romance, Women Sleuths
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
ASIN:  B0CQMJM931
Print Length: 220 pages
Publication Date: June 25, 2024
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US  |  Amazon-UK   |   Barnes & Noble

 

The Author: Jess Lourey writes about secrets.

She’s the Amazon Charts bestselling, Edgar-nominated, ITW Thriller, Anthony, and Minnesota Book Award-winning author of young adult, magical realism, crime fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books. She’s a retired professor of writing and sociology, a recipient of The Loft’s Excellence in Teaching fellowship, and a TEDx presenter (check out her TEDx Talk to discover the surprising inspiration behind MAY DAY, her first published novel).

She lives in Minneapolis with a rotating batch of foster kittens (and occasional foster puppies, but man are those goobers a lot of work). Drop by jessicalourey.com to find out more.

©2024 V Williams