Book Review: Invisible by Lorena McCourtney

Invisible by Lorena McCourtney
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a free Nook book.  I vacillated between two and three stars, but the mystery was basically good and there  was enough that I liked that I went with three.  This is the first book in the Ivy Malone series and is set in the South -- Alabama if I remember correctly -- which is always a plus for me.  The book starts out with a death, by natural causes and is just kind of sad.  From there we veer into several stories, one of which is the death of Ivy’s friend’s renter, Kendra.

The invisible part comes from Ivy’s observation that Little Old Ladies, whom she refers to as LOLs, are not really noticed by the world at large.  So, she uses this to her advantage.  Sorta.  The LOL part I had to think about every time I read it, because I kept thinking Laugh out Loud from chat speak. (In fairness, I believe this book was written in the early ’90’s before chat).  At any rate, there was some romance for Ivy with two really nice guys and I liked the detective who investigated Kendra’s murder, Dix.  I also liked her neighbor Magnolia.  In fact, I liked most of the characters... except the bad guys, of course.

There were a couple of things I didn’t like.  First, it’s a Christian book.  I have nothing against Christian books, I just wish I’d known up front.  Here, however, it’s almost gratuitous.  With romances, I think there’s a point and maybe there can be with mysteries, but with this book it was almost a side story -- let’s get the good detective to church and make sure we hook him up with a nice, Christian girl.  Othewise, it added nothing to the story other than Ivy goes to church.

The second thing was Ivy’s "Investigating."  In the beginning, while not what I would do, it wasn't reckless, just odd (cemetery stakeouts). I don’t care for detectives that clearly do what they shouldn’t without thinking things through; those who wind up looking like little old meddling ladies and kind of dumb in the process. Granted I didn’t like the detective who took over from Dix, however, Ivy’s investigating just grew tiresome.  At times, it was somewhat funny, but the end was cliche, right out of a detective TV show (think requisite chase scene) and it turns out not quite the end.  I will say that everything did tie up nicely, however, turns out it’s a “to be continued” book.  Alas, I don’t foresee me continuing this series.


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