A HALLOWEEN MURDER (The Isle of Wight Killings Book 4) by Mary Grand will be released on July 7, 2025 by Boldwood Books.
Susan is excited to have her daughter, Zoe, in town—even if Zoe’s main reason for the visit to the Isle of Wright is to reconnect with her high school friends and bandmates at a performance dedicated to their former music teacher. While Zoe and a friend are staying at Susan’s house, the rest of the group are renting an apartment at the nearby castle. Following a late-night ghost walk around the castle grounds, one of the group members is found dead. Considering the castle was locked up for the night and the six friends were the only ones inside when the murder took place, the suspect list is very short. Because her daughter is one of the suspects, Susan inserts herself into the investigation. She must prove that Zoe is innocent and figure out which of her daughter’s former friends is a killer before anyone else is harmed.
My main reason for reading A HALLOWEEN MURDER was because it involved my favorite holiday and a ghost tour around an old castle. I really loved the setting. The castle came off as very creepy and it added to the atmosphere of the story. The characters I did not love at all. Aside from being a dog-lover (always a plus in my book), Susan is just bizarre. But I won’t go into her relationship with her quasi-boyfriend or the fact that she spends much of the novel hanging out with her daughter and her daughter’s former friends from high school. But speaking of those former friends…the true mystery of A HALLOWEEN MURDER is why this group of people is spending a week together in the first place. Sure, five out of the six were friends back in high school. They were in a band together, and they wanted to honor their former music teacher at a retirement party. But a lot of time has passed since high school, and recent events have caused serious issues among the group. Issues that are so serious that I just cannot wrap my head around the fact that they wanted to hang out with each other for any significant amount of time.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.