Review by Booklist Review
Septuagenarian and longtime Mackinac Island resident Mimi receives an invitation from her arch enemy, Jane, to attend an auction at Jane's palatial estate. But along with it comes a note threatening to reveal a terrible secret from Mimi's past. Unsettled and upset, Mimi contacts her granddaughter, Addie, to ask for her help and support. Addie is going through a bad breakup, so she's happy to escape to Mackinac. When Addie arrives, she notices that Mimi is unusually tense, but when they appear at Jane's auction, there's worse to come: Jane is found murdered, and then more bodies begin to pile up. There's a terrible snowstorm, the police can't reach Jane's mansion, and those attending begin to fear there's a murderer on the loose, or worse, that one of them might be a killer. Addie is the creator of Murderscape, a popular murder-investigation video game, so playing amateur sleuth is second nature. She and Mimi team up in a search fraught with unexpected twists and plenty of danger. Die-hard fans of cozy mysteries may enjoy this debut, a feast of a winter tale.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Mullen debuts with an impressive closed-circle whodunit. Septuagenarian Mimi MacLaine mostly keeps to herself on Michigan's idyllic Mackinac Island, so she's surprised to receive an invitation to an auction at the home of her wealthy neighbor, Jane Ireland. Mimi's surprise turns to shock when she discovers a note inside the invitation threatening to expose an undisclosed secret unless she makes a high bid on a valuable manga. Horrified, Mimi turns to her estranged granddaughter, Addie, for help. A lifelong mystery fan, Addie is the creator of Murderscape, a popular multiplayer video game; Mimi hopes that Addie's passion for puzzles might help loosen her from the jam. Addie agrees to help, but after she and Mimi arrive at Jane's home, they find her dead, and immediately wonder if her blackmail plot has gotten her killed. Soon, a storm traps Addie, Mimi, and several more of Jane's auction guests in her mansion, and the body count starts to balloon. Mullen makes the most of her classic setup, playing scrupulously fair with readers while leavening the bloodshed with dashes of wry humor. It's a promising start. (Apr.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A testy Mackinac Island grandmother invites her granddaughter to a charity event that turns into a "pajama party from hell," one that will test both of their very different skill sets to the limit. Mimi MacLaine would love to see more of downstater Addie Paget, orphaned at 21 and then dumped by her fiancé, Brian Perry, who took all the credit for developing their wildly popular video game,Murderscape, and sold his company to Microsoft for big bucks that went to him alone. So why, Mimi asks, doesn't Addie join her at a party thrown by her neighbor Jane Ireland, a wealthy widow who's recently started an affair with her own son-in-law, Matthew Reed, who's married to Jane's outraged daughter, Alexandra? Jane's invitation to celebrate with her "son-in-lover" might sound less tempting if Mimi told Addie that Jane is blackmailing her into coming and bidding top dollar on one of the items she's auctioning off, so she doesn't mention that. To the surprise of everyone but the reader, Jane is stabbed to death just as a historic snowstorm hits Mackinac, shutting down communications, preventing anyone from lowering the literal drawbridge over Jane's moat, keeping the authorities from entering the place, and trapping the guests--most of whom are evidently being blackmailed as well--in their palatial digs until the "snowmageddon" abates. The upside is that Mimi and Addie have plenty of time to pool their resources, question the boilerplate suspects, one-up each other's brightly witty remarks, puzzle over a truly ingenious series of clues, and solve the murder. Oops, make that murders. Despite the title, this is absolutely a game from the first word to the last. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
