last scene alive

last scene alive
charlaine harris
aurora teagarden mysteries #7
fiction/mystery/thriller/romance
penguin group usa
published 2009

In the first Aurora Teagarden book, Real Murders, Aurora teamed up with mystery writer Robin Crusoe to solve the murders.  Robin went on to write a book about the case and moved out to Hollywood.  Now he's back with an entire film crew to make the movie based on his book in Lawrencetown.  Aurora is less than happy about the film, especially because everyone wants to know who this quiet, rich, librarian is who the main character is based on.  And it turns out someone else doesn't want the movie to be made...

I discovered that while reading this book one of the main reasons I enjoy reading series is because I like getting to know the characters.  I like following a character throughout several installments.  They become people I know and I enjoy that.  Charlaine Harris has succeeded in spoiling that for me in almost every turn.  With the exception of very small bit characters she's continually removing characters who could possibly play a large part in Aurora's life.  I miss Martin & Angel.  Though Angel does make an appearance in this book, it's brief.

Nonetheless, the story took longer than usual to get going and there were quite a few times when I wanted Aurora to ditch her Southern manners and tell someone where to stick it.  But of course, she doesn't and that starts to get annoying.  The mystery itself was kind of blah.  I felt like this was more of a bridge book to show how she was getting over the loss of Martin and moving on.  There's one book left in the series and from all accounts this is the last one so I'm interested for sure to see how everything ends for Aurora, but I'm glad I'll be finishing up.