All reading and no writing...

It seems I have spent more time reading than writing lately.  Life intrudes. The weather -both good and bad  - intrudes.  This time of year I really can stop and smell the flowers.  Green up time is happening to the yard and garden.  But, back to stalking the shelves, not the plant stalks.
Three mysteries are on the top of the stack to do.  Carolyn Hart's DEAD BY MIDNIGHT (Morrow, 987-0-06-191497-3); Hallie Ephron's COME AND FIND ME (Morrow, 978-0-06-185752-2);  Diane Mott Davidson's CRUNCH TIME (Morrow, 978-0-06-134815-0.
DEAD BY MIDNIGHT  has the intrepid bookstore owner looking in to the very suspicious death of a  woman who has just started working for Annie.  It is called suicide, but Annie and her husband think it is murder.  The unraveling of the story also unravels the unhappiness of a wealthy family on the island and their secrets.  Sometimes the wicked stepmother really is.  A fun, quick read with a literary bent. 
COME AND GET ME is my least favorite of the three.  It involves a group of computer hackers who have gone legit and started their own computer security firm.  Diana Highsmith has lived a life of seclusion and fear to be outside of her house since she saw her fiancee lost in a mountain climbing accident and she conducts all of her part of the business with an avatar and virtually.  But things are not quite what they seem and when her best friend goes missing after a kind of flash mob event, Diana ventures out into the real world and in to a heap of trouble for herself.  Lots of twists and turns before the rather non-ending.  Still, it held my atttention.  Lots of what if moments.
CRUNCH TIME is typical Davidson.  This time the caterer Goldie Schulz is facing the effects of the recession on her catering business as well as trying help out a friend, Yolanda Garcia, who seems to have a black cloud hovering over her and her feisty aunt.  Murder and arson are following Yolanda and her aunt and Goldie sets out to see why and who is involved. Since Yolanda and her aunt are staying temporarily with Goldie, the action is close to home.  A couple of bodies later, it all gets sorted out, but not before it involves the church, the school, and some wealthy additions to the city.  As many people as seem to die and have their lives uprooted around whatever event Goldie is catering, I am always surprised that people will still hire her. The Goldie books always include new twists on old plots and keeping us up to date on the lives of all the characters,  And the recipes that are included look pretty tasty.