by A R Kennedy

Be sure to scroll to the bottom to read MY REVIEW and for a chance to win a GIVEAWAY!

MY REVIEW – five stars

I loved A. R. Kennedy’s “R.I.P. in Reykjavik” (her second Traveler Cozy Mystery), mostly because I love to travel just like her protagonist, Naomi. First to Africa and now Iceland, hot or cold, it doesn’t matter to Naomi. She thrives on the exotic locations, and not usually on the people she’s with. Her traveling companions (this time her mother, Deirdre, last time her sister, Charlotte, who are both so unlike her) and especially the people who die or become suspects on her travels, are tolerated at best.

A week in Iceland with all the carefully planned agenda is marred from the first day with Naomi’s mother’s presence. So utterly unlike Naomi, the woman is an uncurable flirt, and you might say a man-eater. (Love them, use them, leave them lightly.)

Naomi, who surely wants a beau too, prefers to go about it more naturally. She is shocked at her mother’s outspoken ways. But a vacation is what they came for, and Naomi makes her marauding mother stick to the agenda.

Travelling with Naomi and her mom in the group is a wedding party, complete with bride and groom, maid of honor, best man, and the bride’s parents. Both Naomi and her mother find it strange that the newlyweds would want them all on their honeymoon.

Stranger still is the death of one of the wedding party while on a scuba tour, for no apparent reason. Natural causes? Accident? Negligence? Murder?

While Naomi’s detecting instincts rise, her mother makes a play for the Father of the Bride – right under the nose of the Mother of the bride! “Don’t worry, honey, it will be alright,” she promises.

Earlier, the groom had “hit on” Naomi, and the handsome Best Man had made advances toward both the bride and the groom. What gives, here?  Hotel rooms are switched so often that it’s hard to keep track of where everyone is sleeping. [ALL according to cozy mystery standards!)

No one in the group seems to be grieving for the dead one? All are sticking to the tour agenda. While the tour guide keeps getting weirder – driving crazily, forgetting times and places, leaving vacationers behind, hiding photos, lying about his name.

And then the police tell them no one in the party can leave the country.

Naomi, the coolest traveling amateur-investigator ever, looks at each person as a suspect. She interviews everyone, sneaks peeks at papers and photos, and butters up a policeman for news. She makes her mother gather evidence too, and enlists her sister back in the States for help via texts and emails. But can she find the elusive murderer. Can it be … her mother??

It’s clear that author Kennedy has all her quirky characters on tight strings that she is deftly manipulating towards an unexpected revelation and conclusion.  Can the reader guess first?

The author’ descriptions of Iceland, tourist sites, endless sunshine, old world superstitions, and crazy food and drinks, make me think she has been there.  I love how she names each chapter with an Icelandic word – you will learn many of them!  And how she has her amateur sleuth investigate, keeps readers on the edge of their seats.

Oh, please, A.R. Kennedy, keep these travel mysteries coming!

GIVEAWAY

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