The Cantaloupe Thief - Book Review

The Cantaloupe Thief 

A Branigan Powers Mystery

By Deb Richardson-Moore

9781782641926 | $14.99 | Paperback | Lion Fiction

Tour Dates: July 18-22, 2016
Books Delivered By: June 18, 2016
Register By: May 9, 2016

About the book:

Branigan Powers knows a good story when she sees one—and the ten-year-old cold case of wealthy Alberta Grambling Resnick's murder definitely makes the cut. Resnick was stabbed in her home after she let it slip that she was planning to change her will. There are plenty of suspects in the death of the matriarch of the town's founding family, but the killer has never been caught.

Now Branigan must do some serious digging to get her story. She knows the town's homeless community might have seen something; she also knows that the local cops wouldn't have thought of questioning these often-invisible people. There's a big problem, though: as Branigan starts digging, the homeless start dying. When her twin brother, a long-time addict, gets involved, the consequences of her investigation may hit a little too close to home.

Set in the fictional small town of Grambling, Georgia, The Cantaloupe Thief is the first in a new mystery series by Deb Richardson-Moore. The author is herself a former journalist and works extensively with the homeless, lending weight to the portrayal of a believable and engaging whodunit.

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My Thoughts:
Is it possible to solve a decade-long unsolved murder? Settled in cozy, upscale Grambling, Georgia, all is not what it seems. There's an underside to this city that many residents simply don't care to see. Invisible transients, homeless to the residents of Grambling, are starting to die under mysterious circumstances. Can the unsolved murder that happened ten years ago hold a clue to what is actually going on?

Hardworking and driven, Branigan Powers is given the assignment to write about the 10 year unsolved murder for The Rambler newspaper. Once her story runs, homeless people start dying. Feeling as though she's somehow responsible, things start to spiral out of her control until the climactic ending.

The author is a talented writer and this story was interesting. There were a couple of times I thought I knew who the murderer was—only to find out I was wrong. I like that in a story. There were a few swear words that were unnecessary. Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before, they're just trying to make a gritty story realistic, but in my opinion, that's not something that makes a story realistic. How she wrote the various homeless personalities was gritty and realistic enough. Also, the watered down religion angle was something that I couldn't quite be comfortable with. I understand that these homeless people don't always want to change—but the Gospel changes lives. I've seen it; it happened to me.

Like I said, it's an interesting read. I very much liked how she made the reader care for the homeless, and it did make me look at people around me in a different manner.


My thanks to the publisher for providing this book in exchange for my honest review.