REVIEW: A WEDDING AND A KILLING, BY LAUREN CARR

It was supposed to be a quiet, simple wedding, officiated by their friend, Deborah Hess, the minister of the local church, and attended by close friends David and Chelsea. But the best laid plans are thwarted by something unexpected. Something that would interrupt their lives drastically for the foreseeable future. Mac Faraday and his long-time fiancée Archie Monday, are about to realize that even a wedding cannot be a simple event for them, not in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland.

The coming apart of the ceremony begins with Gnarly, the German Shepherd that believes he is part of the family, and even a member of the police force in this town. His furious barking outside a closed office door in the hallway, where Eugene, the head of the church trustees is supposedly working, leads to further investigation. And a startling discovery. Eugene, shot three times, and dead.

In the furor that follows, with an investigation that leads down numerous pathways, the police unexpectedly uncover another mystery: a killing that happened seven years before in New York’s Catskill Mountains.

What, if anything, does that killing have to do with what is happening in Maryland? What will Mac and David and other authorities discover about their friends and neighbors as they follow every lead, stymied at almost every turn, until finally, the stunning unfolding of the dramatic mystery culminates with a dangerous stand-off in a mountain home?

As usual, the characters and settings thoroughly engaged me as I rapidly turned pages, wondering what would come next. There were so many clues to sort through that the fascination was all about trying to guess who had done what and why. Another delightful story about characters I can’t get enough of. A Wedding and a Killing (A Mac Faraday Mystery Book 8) is part of a series featuring Mac Faraday, a former detective, whose famous birth mother, Robin Spencer, left her vast estate to him when she died. It is easy to follow the connections, as the author provides a cast of characters at the beginning. Another five star read!