I did not have a good start with this book. A page and a half in I wanted I rolled my eyes: "that's not how that works." Lexi receives a phone call that the plane her parents were on has crashed, no survivors. How is her first reaction not: "Is this a crank call?" Anyone can claim they are the police over the phone. Next, after a night of sobbing in her bed, she calls the office to take a few personal days and she's fired. Again, over the phone. I know it's rather easy to fire someone in the US, but that is crude.

As quickly as Lexi looses her parents and her job, she finds her grandmother and a new job as the secretary of the town constable. Mere paragraphs are devoted to these life-changing events that could have been used to flesh-out the character of Lexi. (There are books that have as the plot what is here the summary of chapter one.) Guess the author was rushing to get to the good stuff.

The good stuff is where the second chapter starts: the gran reports two of her friends are missing. After the constable sends Lexi to talk to the landlord of the missing friends (giving a sexist reason for not doing this himself), she decides to ask some questions and thus starts an investigation. Why the constable is not doing this investigation is unclear - he's probably too busy helping old ladies cross the street.

The scenes where Lexi asks questions and gets very little answers could - again - be more fleshed out. With investigation stuff, I mean. When Lexi first talks to Jake there is already too much of her falling over herself with being in awe with him. Jake doesn't want to answer her questions, citing confidentiality laws, but asks Lexi out instead. Which feels like an odd move (if not sexist: let's distract the nosy woman with romance).

Odder still, is that Lexi feels it is out of place for the landlord and the insurance agent to request a court order before they answer questions about their tenants/clients. This is a former law student, surely she should understand that the first obligation these men have is to protect the privacy of their clients. They are under no obligation to answer the questions of a nosy (if well-meaning) secretary. So law was not what she would have picked herself (her dad decided for her), but she doesn't even seem to have a grudging appreciation for the law. Rather, she's miffed the law gets in the way of her investigation.

Actually, she doesn't even use her knowledge of the law to help herself. On Saturday she goes to the mortician's because she has an appointment to pick up the autopsy report. When there, she is quickly ushered out by the assistant mortician, but meets the constable and the county sheriff on the way out. The sheriff wants her to stay for questioning because she seems "to have a habit of showing up around dead bodies." What? And why didn't she lawyer up in the hour that the sheriff kept her waiting? - That's what lawyers are for: to help you when the police inconveniences you.

A proper lawyer would also have made minced meat of the questioning by the sheriff.

Perhaps the dad (or the author) had better picked a different field of study, one that still has prestige, but that will likely not crop up during a (murder) investigation.

Murder and Mayhem lacks a lot that it needs to make it a good book. Its characters need to be fleshed-out more. I didn't get a feel for any of them. They only seemed to be there for the main character, but did not have much of a life on their own. (Peyton, for instance, has a job running a B&B en a nine-year-old daughter and always has time to meet with Lexi.)

Also, the story needs more elements that are important in a cozy mystery. Namely the part where I learn as much about the mystery as the sleuth. I don't, because some events are told, rather than shown. In chapter 23, Lexi talks to the Drakes and visits the retirement village, and from these encounters determines that a number of people can be taken off her list of suspects. I have no idea why. I don't know how these meetings went. There was no scene where things happened. There were no clues or red herrings. So basically, no mystery to figure out.