A review by whimsicallymeghan
Wish You Were Here by Rita Mae Brown

3.0

In the small town of Crozet, Virginia, where things don’t change and everything is status quo, live Harry and her pets, Mrs. Murphy a tiger cat and Tucker a corgi dog. Everything is normal until some of their community members start to wind up dead. While working at the post office, Harry starts to realize that each citizen who was murdered received a post card in the mail saying ‘Wish You Were Here’. Harry with the help of her furry friends start to piece together the mystery. This was a fun cozy murder mystery. First of all, a note that only pertains to this reader and how they read the books, doing a quick compare reading the last book in the series and going back to the first one is so interesting to see the characters and where they were in their lives and where they ended up; they are in such different places in the thirty years that span between these two books. A lot has happened to these characters and the reader can’t wait to continue reading to find out. Speaking of characters, this was a good introduction to them and to the town. We got a sense of who everyone was and how they functioned to keep the community going. We didn’t get as deep as we could have with them; they all felt pretty surface level in their descriptions, but the reader hopes with the coming books we’ll learn more of who they are as characters. As for the murder mystery plot, it was good; it was fast-paced and kept the reader invested and captivated. The mystery didn’t exactly wow them, but it was still good and it left them excited to see how Brown’s writing improves. In this one, the animals actually helped with solving the mystery and they did it in such a clever way, they were hilarious and gave the plot an extra thrill. The way this ended was a little lacklustre in the way it just finished by saying ‘everyone went on their way’ like the author was dusting their hands of the story making it seem like they didn’t know how to end it. Those minor things aside though, this was still a good start for the first novel in a series.