A review by c0d3nam3qt
Cold Clay by Juneau Black

3.5

Firstly, I liked that this one was a bit less complicated/convoluted than the first book. And, it felt more cozy.

I didn’t love that the new lady in town turned out to be the bad guy. Not only was it too obvious, but that is the same story line as the last book. 
I hope this isn’t going to happen in the next ones. 
I was hoping that Octavia had an accomplice. Or she only scammed Julia, but unknown to Octavia, someone else had killed her. 

I like Vera’s and Orville’s relationship, but I wish it had been handled a bit differently. We never got to see there dynamic before the blow up in this book since the first booked ended with them going on their first date and this one a few months later at their fight. 
I didn’t like that Orville’s outburst wasn’t dealt with more directly. He was really mean to Vera, and it was just brushed under the rug with flowers and dinner.

I did appreciate that Vera had a lot more of her own ideas in this book. The first one it seemed like Lenore pulled all the weight. It is pretty silly though that Orville was supposedly looking into the case, but contributed absolutely zero to the solution. All he had to add after they already knew it was Octavia, was that she had a bad vibe when he met her previously. 

I really liked that they brought up Otto’s journals again. It was a nice tie in to the first book. I think there might have been some continuity issues with this part, but I can forgive it. 

My hope for the next issues, is that the stories have some good plot twists/reveals. More character development, meaning characters learning things about themselves and talk about things unrelated to the cases. And, less stumbling on evidence.