The Coconut Killings by Patricia Moyes
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Here is another Tibbetts tale with massive holes. Despite an otherwise good story, the holes in the novel cannot be ignored. The worse is the use of a machete on a human with no apparent problem of the resulting blood being everywhere after the action. Apparently this was a clean machete murder. Seems Moyes didn’t learn about what happens when violently hacking a machete. She did learn about how it should have been done.

This problem makes the rest of the book impossible. Seems to me Moyes had an ending in mind, built and outline and then filled in the blanks. This would explain how few seem concerned about the violence of the murder involved and what happens later. Especially the Tibbetts, who are not even on their home turf. Moyes writes Henry Tibbett as nearly a superman who barges around with no fear of death and flies long distances in record time.

Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book. 4 out of ten points.

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Murder Fantastical by Patricia Moyes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I do like this Tibbetts series and this one was as much fun as the last I read.

The mystery starts off very slowly. There’s meandering all over, in and out, up and down, ad around the Manciple family. The family is interesting, just, to me, not that interesting. All of the meandering leads to very well defined characters. Especially impressive due to a very large cast.

The settings are well illustrated. The locations are few and two major settings are particularly well told.

Bottom line: I recommend this book: 6 out of 10 points.

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