Mistletoe Murder (A Lucy Stone Mystery, #1) by Leslie Meier

Mistletoe Murder (A Lucy Stone Mystery, #1) Reviews

• 
  Fergus, Quondam Happy Face

  I loved this delectable little Christmas Goody - and, all the mildly-described mentions of murdering aside, it gave me that wonderful warm and fuzzy Holiday glow inside.
  
  And we all need that as the weather turns colder!
  
  We all have dreams. I dreamed of going to Frisco. Lucy Stone dreams of having more money with which to support her little hand-me-down family.
  
  After all, she has brains and a pair of capable hands - and, you know, Hubby’s pay check doesn’t go far in these hard economic times!
  
  So she’s got a night job, after a long day of housework and kids.
  
  And me - my experience came from MUCH less practical - and downright Dumb, workaday daydreaming.
  
  When I was 17, I wanted to go to Frisco to be with the Hippies. No joke! But it WAS 1967, the Summer of Love!
  
  I worked at the Greater Victoria Water District on the West Coast that summer...
  
  My wonderful Dad knew one of its execs from his childhood - who was the father of Thomas Homer-Dixon, famous author of the epochal and highly influential The Upside of Down.
  
  A good book for our viral times, cause when bad things happen, hard-working folks can turn them into GOOD things.
  
  Though I didn’t work too hard that summer.
  
  Anyway...
  
  It was the Summer of Love, and Haight-Ashbury.
  
  All that summer, as we motored through the vast coniferous watershed, cleared brush, and kept the area clean and safe, we crew members would hear on our beat-up truck radio the liberating sounds of psychedelic music.
  
  And me, of course, I wanted to visit Frisco with my hard-earned workaday cash stash!
  
  Practical, huh?
  
  Well, when I counted my savings at the end of the summer, I AT LEAST reckoned that by dropping in (and dropping out?) at Haight-Ashbury I would blow it ALL!
  
  So, I thought, AT LEAST I can visit Seattle! And I did.
  
  BOR-ING. But since then I always saved money, like Lucy.
  
  At least I did some shopping for school clothes. The PREPPY look was cool then. Oh well….
  
  The industrious heroine of this tale, though, hales from the other coast.
  
  But Lucy Stone works hard AND SAVES.
  
  Along with feeding and lovingly nurturing her young family, with her full-time night job - taking phone-in orders for a large local company, a major Maine outdoors retailer, she can JUST pay the bills.
  
  Sorta like I realized in my thirties when I started to knuckle down.
  
  Does she have time for any sleep? If so, she’ll get even less when a string of Holiday murders hits a bit too close to home!
  
  While not a professional sleuth, Lucy DOES stick her nose more often than not into other people’s mysterious mistletoe double-dealings...
  
  And, careless of the risk, SOLVES each mystery in a snap using clues from local gossip.
  
  Lucy was a new heroine for me, but I intend to make her a regular reading friend.
  
  A Cozy Mystery with lots of Christmas flavour, this series has won me over!
  
  And Eminently Practical...
  
  Like I try to be...
  
  NOW.
• 
  Kelly

  I thought this might be a nice cozy little mystery for the holidays, something easy but pleasant to read when there are so many outside distractions going on. And it might've been okay, but I'll never know, because I'm not going to finish it. This is why (don't worry, not really a spoiler): Less than 50 pages in, the main character Lucy is driving home and sees the body of her dead cat near her driveway. Her attitude about it is offensive and annoying to an animal lover such as myself. She doesn't even get out to check on the cat, just makes an "oh well" type of comment, and ponders finding the kids a little Christmas kitten. Then her husband "drops the cat into the grave" that he dug. UGH. The author must have a similarly cavalier attitude towards animals to have written such a scenario. I find this appalling, and just don't care enough about the book to bother finishing. I did try for another 40 pages or so, but the cat thing had already ruined it for me.
• 
  Kat

  What a great look at small-time life in down-East Maine. Leslie Meier does such a nice job of capturing everyday life, whether that’s working in a call center, everyone in a small town knowing one another, or covering childcare for your neighbors when there’s been an accident. In this first book of the Lucy Stone series, when Lucy witnesses a death outside her call center, she goes on the hunt for more clues. This book was a bit heavier on the murder and a little lighter on the mistletoe, but it was still quite the enjoyable read, and a great mystery that kept me guessing up until the end.
  
  Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader.
• 
  James

  I've read all the Hannah Swensen Mysteries by Joanne Fluke, so I thought I might enjoy the Lucy Stone collection by Leslie Meier; they've published a few mini-novellas together in a single book over the years. Similarly, I love books set in Maine, and after reading a few series written by Barbara Ross and Lea Wait, I noticed this one again... I read one of the mini-novellas a few years ago and thought it had potential, but it was mid-series so I hadn't been fully up to speed. I read this debut in the series and unfortunately had mixed feelings.
  
  First, it was published prior to 2000, when books weren't very PC... I'm totally okay with that, as I balance the time something was written with the intent of the author, prior to making judgment. That said... references to homosexuality and people with mental or physical disabilities were definitely abundant and not handled very well. Perhaps the author's journey into subsequent books will correct the language and tone. It wasn't outright rude, but definitely showed a very narrow-minded view without a single character ever trying to show a more mature point of view. That's where I get frustrated with authors; it's good to have characters with views or personalities or situations that not all readers will agree with, but there should be a balance. Maybe an intro to the book that explains why it was written in such a way, or another character chastising the uninformed people saying rude things. Meier did none of that in this book, but I'll read a few more before casting judgment. And if it turns out the writer also believes these awful things she puts in the books, well... that's her prerogative and I will stop reading the books. But I want to be fair and give them a chance.
  
  All that said, Lucy is a great character. I liked the mystery and that she has children she cares for. The scenes with her mother and family at Christmas were touching. And I think she's got lots of potential to become a great investigator. On the flip side, some side plots were dropped, a few clues weren't explained at all, and the ending kinda came from nowhere without a strong enough explanation. I waffled between a 2 and 3 on this one, yet I walked away with a generally positive feeling and some hope, so I am going with the 3 this time. Will try another one later this month.
• 
  Mandy

  3 1/2 stars... Definitely a fun and fast paced mystery. Lucy Stone was tolerable in this one, not as much "Mary Poppins on speed" which I appreciate. I enjoy these mysteries, they are light and easy to read. Last book of 2015 for me!
• 
  ✨ Gramy ✨

  …
  This is a cookie-cutter cozy mystery. It is based on Lucy Stone's view of her life, vaguely interrupted by finding the owner of the company that she is employed by murder. Consequently, the book specifies her day-to-day life, a lack of sought after mentions about the clues pertaining to the murder, and not much compulsion to complete the book.
  
  
  MAIL-ORDER MURDER As if baking holiday cookies, knitting a sweater for her husband’s gift, and making her daughter’s angel costume for the church pageant weren’t enough things for Lucy Stone’s busy Christmas schedule, she’s also working nights at the famous mail-order company Country Cousins. But when she discovers Sam Miller, it's very wealthy founder, dead in his car from an apparent suicide, the sleuth in her knows something just doesn’t smell right.
  
  
  Although it can be entertaining, it is not exciting enough to compel me, the reader, to keep turning pages to get a taste of more morsels of details.
  
  After reading more recently published works of romance, mystery, and paranormal - I have discovered that the more recently published works provide the reader with a more 'instant-gratification' than the previous books used to. So combing through this book and its mundane diatribes of what consisted of the daily life of the heroine, i was left with my jaw hanging open.
  
  
  Taking time out from her hectic holiday life to find out what really happened, her investigation leads to a backlog of secrets as long as Santa’s Christmas Eve route. Lucy is convinced that someone murdered Sam Miller. But who and why? With each harrowing twist she uncovers in this bizarre case, another shocking revelation is exposed. Now, as Christmas draws near and Lucy gets dangerously closer to the truth, she’s about to receive a present from Santa she didn’t ask for--a killer who won’t be satisfied until everyone on his shopping list is dead, including Lucy herself…"Lucy Stone is an endearing sleuth."
  
  
  I used to enjoy this type of material immensely, but now it seems monotonous. I don't know if I am in a mood or if my tastes are changing,
  .
• 
  Luffy

  Having read half of the book a day ago, I tarried before reading it again the next day. In the morning, I had a barbed insinuation aimed at my by our cleaning lady. To my annoyance I had much difficulty in shrugging off the zinger. I was feeling down and cranky. I was only when I took up this book to read the other half that the self awareness got tempered. Then it hit me...I was missing reading. It gave me a Wolverine like healing ability. I'm thankful to authors like Leslie Meier to bring so many ideas encased in books like these. So very soothing. I'm grateful. Thanks.
• 
  Alice

  I did not find any of the characters in this book very likable at all. Their interaction with pets is callous at worst and indifferent at best. The story was somewhat engaging, but I just cannot stand the characters, especially Lucy Stone and her incessant whining. Yes, it is Christmas and there is a lot to do. Yes, you have kids and there is a lot to do. Yes, you have a job and there is a lot to do. Yes, there is a lot to do. Get over it!
• 
  Maren’s Reads

  3.5⭐️
• 
  Readaholic Jenn

  Great start to an amazing series. I love Lucy and her friends, family and her town. Leslie Meier is an marvelous author.
• 
  Gary Sundell

  3.5 stars. A solid cozy mystery. But....the killing of both a cat and dog for no good purpose lost this book a star and a half. I will likely read more in the series at some point.
• 
  Ms. J Johnson

  There was very little "mystery" in this book at all. The main character's life (in a mystery) shouldn't overshadow the mystery. In this case, the main character's life overwhelmed and smothered the mystery and left it for dead. Lucy finds a dead body on page 14 and another on page 194, but in between it's all about her getting ready for Christmas, having Christmas at her house, the lull in business at work after Christmas and, quite frankly, she's complaining through it all. We have to read all about her mother being depressed because Lucy's father died 6 months earlier, Lucy's father-in-law being intimidating, how much Lucy's got to do to get ready for Christmas, and people getting laid off from their jobs right before Christmas - none of which furthers the plot. These elements weren't incorporated into the mystery - they're all you read about. Between the pages of 14 and 194, there is little to no mention of the "mystery" at all. Her cat gets purposely strangled somewhere in there and I have yet to figure out how that furthered the plot of the book. She tries to help out a family in poverty and her husband tells her not to because the reason they live in poverty is that they don't want to work "like the rest of us". She goes back anyway and a man ends up shooting and killing his own dog because the dog was chasing Lucy. Again, I don't see how people killing pets furthers the plot of the book. There are several paragraphs devoted to Lucy making a sandwich. In the end, Lucy accidentally stumbles on the solution to the "mystery". All in all, this has got to be one of the worst books I've ever finished and I wouldn't have finished it if I hadn't signed up for the 50 book a year challenge (if it had been any longer, I wouldn't have finished it). It was tedious and boring. I read the book because I really liked the Lucy Stone short story in Candy Cane Murder. I'm assuming that there are better Lucy Stone books, but I doubt that I'll take my chances on them. I really regret that I wasted my money on this one.
• 
  Iniya

  Cozy mystery, neither was it slow nor was it a page-turner. Good for mindless reading but I wasn't really sold on this book.
• 
  Elle G. Reads

  I am a big fan of cozy mysteries and this one really hit the spot for the genre, and for a pleasant holiday read. I'm excited for the next installment (although a little intimidated because there are SO MANY books in this series!!!).
• 
  Regina

  ⭐️⭐️⭐️ -Audiobook
• 
  Melissa

  When the founder of the mail-order company Lucy Stone works for is found dead in his car of an apparent suicide, Lucy’s instincts tell her that it was murder. Secrets start to come out and the danger for Lucy increases as she investigates on her own to find the person responsible.
  
  This is the first book I have read by Leslie Meier. I enjoy cozy mysteries and I think I’ll enjoy this series. Lucy Stone is practical, but determined. The series is set in a small town in Maine called Tinker’s Cove and all the people you meet in this book are delightful. Everyone knows everyone and everyone’s business. Each chapter starts off with an item number and description from the Country Cousins catalog and some of them I would have bought myself. Also, somewhere in the chapter the item, or similar item, is mentioned being used. It was kind of cool.
  The mystery throughout the book is well organized and played out. There are multiple twists and some pretty funny situations that made me chuckle. The story never gets overly complicated or serious, hence the cozy mystery label. It was a nice change for me since I enjoy the real gritty mysteries. The outcome of the murder is swift, but thorough. There are no loose ends.
  Lucy’s family is wonderful and I look forward to continuing the series and seeing the kids grow and see where Lucy’s sleuthing skills go.
• 
  Kate

  The actual story in this book is only 202 pages (the rest of the book is TWO sample chapters and a lot of other nonsense to make it look thicker), but it took me forever to get through this. This book was about 90% filler and MAYBE 10% mystery. The main character really only does one thing in her "efforts" to solve the mystery, and the ending doesn't tie everything up, and that was disappointing, considering how little there even was to explain. The logic in this book was also mind numbing (X gets into a car accident, but X is a good driver. Thus, someone MUST have been trying to kill X!). I was also surprised to find bad language, just because the Lucy Stone book covers always look so innocent! The attitude toward animals also bothered me. I'm only giving this book 2 stars because I liked the Maine setting, and the writing at least flowed.
• 
  Jes Hancock

  This book is supposed to be a cozy mystery. However, there's hardly any mystery; 90% of the book is Lucy complaining about how much she has to do before Christmas, her mother's depression, her father-in-law being a jerk, etc. If all of the "mystery" parts were put together the book would only be about 15 pages; most of it is fluff. The big reveal of the mystery was anticlimactic and tepid, at best. Also, the attitudes that are portrayed in this book toward women are outdated; however, the attitudes they display towards pets are simply atrocious. This will be the only Lucy Stone mystery book I read.
• 
  Dawn Michelle

  WHAT the heck did I just read? Did that book make any sense? NO. And the end, was tepid and wasn't that just easy to tidy that weirdo wandering [did we really need 6 sub-stories going on with the main murder one that never went anywhere?] story up nice and easy and make the one reading it go "WHAT was that" and "ARE. YOU. SERIOUS?"
  I am glad that I only owned one of this series and that I do not have to read anymore. Meh. I cannot, in good faith, recommend this book to anyone.
• 
  Sabine

  this has become one of my favorite mystery authors. It was such a fun and interesting read. No slow parts at all.
• 
  Matt

  A fun to read who-done-it mystery novel. An easy and fast reading storyline, if you like Agatha Christie mysteries you will probably enjoy it.
• 
  Anastasia

  Mistletoe Murder by Leslie Meier is the first book in the Lucy Stone Mystery series. Working the night shift at a mail order company, Lucy finds the body of the owner dead in his car. I have previously read some of the books in this series out of order and have decided to start from the beginning. It was a nice start to the series and I like getting to know more about Lucy and her family and the town of Tinker's Cove. It is refreshing to have a happily married sleuth and not having to deal with relationship issues. I liked that Lucy genuinely just tried to help her friends. An interesting mystery and a nice start to the series.
• 
  Carmen

  Lucy wondered what life held for her and how she would cope. Would she maintain her naiveté and her vulnerability, as her mother had, or would she turn into someone as wise and as cynical as Miss Tilley?
• 
  Chris Wolak

  My first (as far as I can remember) Christmas cozy! Enjoyable story. It was first published in 1991 and the story holds up. Some of the details are now nostalgic, such as the kids watching a Garfield Chrismas special on the VCR and a husband who suggests his wife take some Midol (do they still make that stuff?). Spoiler alert: the husband lives.
• 
  Nolan

  I've had this series on a hard drive for literally years, and I've decided to undertake a summer series reading thing. As the truly geekiest among us might say, why dabble in parallel when you can dabble in series? Ah, there goes the eye roll, and your hand is hovering way to close to that dangerous mouse button that clicks you out of the review. So let me just get on with it before you click that fatal click.
  
  This is book one in a series that has some serious longevity to it. Lucy Stone is a relatively young mom with three kids and not much time on her hands. To help make ends meet in the small New England town where she, her husband, Bill, and the kids live, she has taken a night job working for a mail order house.
  
  On a cold night days before Christmas, Lucy realizes that her boss's car is parked with the engine running in a parking lot, and worse yet, there appears to be a hose pumping exhaust from the engine into the passenger compartment. By the time she gets to her boss, he's already dead, and it doesn't take long to figure out that his death had nothing to do with suicide.
  
  I guess you'd call this a cozy mystery, although there's plenty of tension--not all of which has to do with solving a murder. There are some interesting subplots here--Lucy has to deal with her recently widowed mother who is slipping into depression and seemingly a bit of dementia as a result of her husband's death. Of course, Lucy's boss's murder isn't ultimately the only bad thing that happens.
  
  Any mom who reads this series will conceivably scoff at the premise that this woman can do the family thing, the job thing, and the sleuth thing. Something somewhere, that mom would argue, has to give; she can't do it all. That may well be true. But I like these characters, and Meier's writing style keeps me going back for more. I actually finished the first two books in the series over a weekend. This one is worth the time you'll spend on it, even if you develop the silly habit of reading a Christmas book in summer.
  
  As to that esoteric circuit reference above, think Christmas tree lights when you were a kid. If one lamp blew, the entire set winked out. Remember? That's a perfect example of a circuit wired in series as opposed to parallel. And that's way, way more than you ever wanted to hear about such things in a review. If you didn't click away from this in that first paragraph, you have my sincere commendations on your tenacity.
• 
  Tari

  It was a lot of fun going back to the very first Lucy Stone and reading about her life before she worked for the Pennysaver, and when her kids were small. This is one of the two series I've just read randomly, which kind of goes against my grain, but some of the later books I'd read were ARCs. I liked the backstory on Barney Culpepper, and how someone had tried to kill him.
  
  Lucy was working at a call center for a local variety store's warehouse. Since this was 1991 (the original publication date), it must have been before outsourcing calls. I was a little worried for her job for a short time. The camaraderie of her work friends was fun with the usual office gossip. I could see a little foreshadowing when she talked to the man who will be her boss eventually about the murder that had taken place. He seemed interested in her curiosity and how she liked to figure things out. Now I want to read in order to see just when she got on at the newspaper.
  
  I didn't guess the killer, and the showdown was really cool, since the police were in on it like a sting operation. I'll probably keep requesting the latest in ARCs, but I plan to try and read from the beginning more regularly now.
• 
  Rebecca

  I liked this mystery. Finally a sleuth that isn't a youngish, single women who gets entrapped into a love triangle and is ALMOST murdered by the murderer before being saved at the last minute. Such a breath of fresh air! A women with a job and kids and a husband, and still nosy enough to investigate a murder. I love the small town Maine feel and enjoyed the characters. I never suspected the culprit or the reason for the murders! I will definitely being continuing with this series and have a lot to catch up on!
• 
  Amy the book-bat

  After jumping around in the series the past couple years, I have finally read book 1 of the series. I feel like some of the later books are better written, likely due to more practice and developed skills. I will say that the culprit this time was a bit of a surprise. Of course, I am now wondering when Lucy started working for the Pennysaver, which is a much better job for her sleuthing.
• 
  Elizabeth

  This was such a good mystery to read whilst being sick in bed. It's the first in the Lucy Stone series and I am glad that I have finally read #1 after having skipped around a bit. This one gave a bit of background and she doesn't even have all of her children yet. Despite there having been a murder- this was a very warm hearted read.