Friday, July 13, 2012

Mystery and Mayhem with a LOL

One series I read this Summer includes the 
Ivy Malone Series, by Lorena McCourtney.  This mystery series features Ivy Malone, a sweet, widowed,Christian, little old lady (LOL) who just happens to continually find herself in the middle of a murder investigation. 


The circumstances surrounding Ivy are 
grim, but she is a spunky and fun character with a lot of wit.  Her curiosity leads her to try to figure out exactly what is happening around her.  There is also a slight "religious overtone" to the stories, as Ivy is a proud, Christian woman who reminds herself that God will bring her through the challenging situations she finds herself in.  This isn't overbearing in anyway, however, so if you don't want a Christian novel, there's really no worries; it's subtle.


When we begin following Ivy's adventures, we learn about how she witnesses something unexplained and then leads the authorities to finding and putting away the bad guys.  Unfortunately for Ivy, these bad guys are part of a mafia-like group and they vow to find her and get rid of her.  Uh oh!


After a fire, Ivy decides to leave her home and go on the run.  First she visits her family's home out of state (while they're elsewhere) but once again, Ivy finds herself among more trouble when the lady across the lake ends up dead.  Then she gets a motor home and decides staying in any one place probably isn't a good idea, so she's ready to travel the country.  While traveling she encounters some stupid emus, a traveling companion named Abilene, a pot bellied pig, and a whole lot of adventure and mystery!


This series is light and full of humor.  Ivy is 
one very likable character, and her friend Abilene becomes a character you care about too.  They have a mother-daughter type relationship of looking out for each other and in more than one way are very important to each other's lives.


I would definitely recommend this entire series to mystery lovers.  I give it a 7.5 out of 10.  The stories are all pretty short and easy to read but I regret being able to score it higher.  After reading the first 4 books and enjoying them quite a bit, I discovered that there were no more...nor does there appear to be any more in the future.  The last one came out in 2006 and sadly there was no resolution or wrap up to Ivy's story.  That was extremely disappointing and put a bad taste in my mouth.







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