“Cold Clay” - Juneau Black

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(Shady Hollow book 2)

🍎 This was another simple, enjoyable mystery in the series. Like the first, CC is a light read. The middle grade aspect comes through especially in the Vera/Orville romance; though it does remind me of the Posie Parker series but that says more about Posie than Vera Vixen.

🍎 Black uses the ultra refined (read: snobbish) character of Octavia Grey to deploy the concept of what she terms, a “cut direct”. The fact that she gives the behavior a name, made me laugh. It’s essentially a weaponized form of politeness. I’d never really thought of it in such Machiavellian terms. Leave it to a minx to take it there.

🍎 I was sad that the authors (Black is a pseudonym for multiple authors) felt compelled to include a note regarding suspending disbelief with this book. These are murder mysteries featuring anthropomorphic denizens of a sleepy village. Isn’t suspension of disbelief understood by readers? I assume the note was included at the behest of publishers after one too many cranks complained about x “not making sense”. And that’s puzzling because kids have no trouble suspending disbelief, so it’s got to be their stick-in-the-mud parents.