Claire Daniels

The Lazar/Dupree family have gathered at Geneva Lazar's home for a large family Thanksgiving dinner. Elderly aunt Daphne Dupree eats a light dinner, has a cordial sip of creme de menthe and promptly falls to the floor dead as a doornail. Daphne's companion, Pilar, immediately accuses the group of murder stating that someone must have poisoned the unfortunate Daphne. The fact that Daphne was dying of cancer and had a stash of morphine in her makeup bag gave the supposed killer easy access to a murderous method. The very next day Pilar also falls victim to a near fatal dose of morphine but she is rushed to the hospital and her life is saved. Obviously someone at the dinner has committed murder.

Or have they? The Lazar/Dupree family spends the next 400 pages in the following conversations: "Was it murder?" "No, it must have been an accident". "Yes, it couldn't have been murder." "But, was it murder?" "No, it wasn't but I guess it could have been". Gack!!!! I wanted to kill the entire lot of them by the end of the book. Hands down one of the worst books I have ever read.

This is apparently a cozy mystery series called "Karma Crime". One of the Lazar girls reportedly has visions of people's auras and does psychic healings. She is said to be too 'kind' to be able to sense murderer's auras. How much awfulness can fit in one book??? I guess I should have stopped at the very beginning when I noted the cast of characters listing took up 4 pages. Stay far far away from this one.
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