Book Details
9798892425681
Crooked Lane Books
2026
Voted Most Likely to Murder
by Lacey Moone
Belinda Bishop is unemployed and single. At thirty-two, her journalism career feels stuck, and let’s not even speak about her love life, which isn’t helping her look forward to her upcoming high school reunion. Stuck working at her parents' seaside cottage and RV park in Nova Scotia for the time being, she needs time to regroup and come up with a killer story to get her career and her life back on track.
When she literally stumbles across the dead body of the philandering class jock at the reunion, the party quickly comes to a stop. At first, it seems like the perfect opportunity for Belinda to channel her inner Christianne Amanpour, until her childhood-best-friend-turned-nemesis, Jolene Dexter, is declared the prime suspect. Despite their falling out, Belinda is convinced the former pageant queen is innocent.
As the two women struggle to put aside their differences, they have to work together to catch the real murderer before this sleepy coastal town is rocked to its foundations.
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My Review
Four Stars — Good Read
Voted Most Likely to Murder opens with a familiar premise, a less-than-triumphant return to a small hometown. A subsequent humiliating high school reunion and the murder of a philandering classmate turns the homecoming into a tense, character‑driven whodunit.
Belinda Bishop, recently returned to her small Nova Scotia town after a painful breakup and stalled writing career, is drawn reluctantly into the past when she discovers the body of the school's former star athlete at the reunion. The prime suspect: Jolene, Belinda’s former best friend and long‑time rival.
The book’s strength lies less in its procedural mechanics than in its portrait of small‑town life and the lingering, brittle ties of adolescence. The author renders Belinda with sympathy and texture: she’s neither a perfect amateur sleuth nor a passive bystander but a relatable woman untangling old wounds while confronting new danger. The Nova Scotia setting with its cottages, tourist RV park, and the claustrophobic familiarity of people who remember you as you were, feels lived‑in and helps sustain the novel's cozy plot.
Pacing is generally brisk, driven by Belinda’s determination and the ensemble of classmates who return key details of their shared past. At times the plotting leans on familiar mystery beats and a few revelations feel predictable, but those moments are offset by incisive interpersonal dynamics and a steady accumulation of motive and atmosphere.
October 9, 2026
Added to catalog: July 13, 2026
Last updated: October 9, 2026