Divorcee Tricia Miles has moved from NYC to Stoneham, NH to open an independent mystery book store as part of a touristy themed book store filled Main Street. Her nasty next door neighbor, owner of The Cookery Doris Gleason, is murdered and the idiot sheriff decides that Tricia is the prime suspect for no other reason, apparently, than that she doesn't like Tricia. In order to save herself from a jail sentence that was never going to happen because the idiot sheriff had no evidence other than her own prejudice against Tricia, Tricia decides to investigate on her own which eventually ends up ferretting out the truth despite the idiot sheriff.I managed to read the entire book, but to be honest I just could not warm up very much to Tricia. We are introduced to her in the first chapter with her having nasty thoughts about Doris Gleason (who, to be fair, seems to have been an awful woman. At least we are *told* she was an awful woman.). However, with this introduction to the characters, it seemed to me that the woman had a reason to complain since the landlord was apparently trying to gouge Doris with a large increase in her rent. Tricia was neither sympathetic or interested in the old woman's plight since her own lease had two more years to run. This is our introduction to the characters, and since we know nothing more than what we see from Tricia's thoughts, I had a warmer feeling for Doris than Tricia who just seemed fairly snotty.Then Tricia's sister calls and we get nasty thoughts about her. I want to like my protagonists, and all this negativity put me right off her. And even when she showed very positive personality traits throughout the book, she kept coming up with juvenile reactions to her sister (who seemed much nicer than Tricia) that ended up putting me off her again. And while I did like some of the supporting characters, there were too many unlikable other characters in the book: the murder victim, the sheriff, the landlord, and the publisher of the small town paper who prints a hatchet job on Tricia for no other reason than he could just to sell his paper. The book was readable, the mystery interesting, but since I didn't like Tricia, I won't be reading any more in this series. The streets of Stoneham, New Hampshire are lined with bookstores...and paved with murder. Stoneham, New Hampshire, was a dying town until community leaders invited booksellers to open shop. Now, its streets are lined with bookstores - and paved with murder…When she moved to Stoneham, city-slicker Tricia Miles was met with friendly faces. And when she opened her mystery bookstore, she met with friendly competition. But when she finds Doris Gleason dead in her own cookbook store, killed by a carving knife, the atmosphere seems more cutthroat than cordial. Someone wanted to get their hands on the rare cookbook that Doris had recently purchased - and the locals think that someone is Tricia. To clear her name, Tricia will have to take a page out of one of her own mysteries - and hunt down someone who isn’t killing by the book
What do You think about Murder Is Binding (2008)?
Love this series in book form or audio. Trisha and her beloved cat and her great characters
—mariah
A warm read with lots of twists and turns and likable characters.
—nanina
felt a little bit forced a times, but overall a good beach read
—chellehoney
