Karen Cantwell

Take the Monkeys and Run is a quirky and fun murder mystery. Barbara Marr is not your typical young, beautiful murder mystery heroine. This is a good thing! She's in her forties with two daughters and a husband who has just left her. She's broken, but not destroyed. Investigating the strange happenings next door is just what she needs to keep going.

The story has monkeys, a human skull, mobsters, and an ex-boyfriend. What more does a mystery need? Humor! There's lots of it! Barbara is show more sarcastic, with a self-deprecating wit. The mobsters are so dumb, they are hysterical! The author, Karen Cantwell, even managed to make the ending full of suspense, terror, and mirth. I laughed my way to the end. Read it and you will, too! show less

"Take the Monkeys and Run" by Karen Cantwell is like comfort food. It is a great book to read when life has become too complicated and you need a rest! From the beginning, your attention is quickly captured. Why are there monkeys in the backyard? Why has the main character, Barbara Marr's husband, Howard, left her so he can get some space? Why can't she get started on her movie review blog? Why has the house next door been vacant aka "House of Many Bones" been vacant for almost 30 show more years?

Barbara Marr's life is messed up. She has three daughters, Amber, Callie and Bethany, a controlling and offbeat mother, friends, Peggy and Roz. She lives in a suburb, Rustic Woods, Virginia and it seems that her life is quickly going downhill. All she has to push it back is a tremendous sense of humor and a wacky way of looking at life. Also a fierce determination to get to the bottom of things.
Oh, I almost forgot, she also has an ex-boyfriend named Colt, Her husband looks like George Clooney and a police officer that keeps popping up in her life who looks like Brad Pitt.

The main character and all of the minor ones are expertly developed and by the end of the book, you want more. The pace is as fast as a trip on Splash Mountain. The author does veer out of the safe realm of most cozies with the appearance of the Mafia but that should make you pass up this book.

I highly recommend this cozy. show less

I wasn't sure what to expect with this book- after all, the whole vampire thing is getting to be a bit much. At its heart though, this is a story about families and relationships not about blood sucking creatuers of the night. Foxy is a former beauty queen recently dumped by her former NFL-star husband and struggling to parent her daughter when she is barely a real grownup herself. She's a shopaholic who worries constantly about her daughter Amanda's goth style and only has a decent business show more because of the work of Knot Knudsen, a guy who basically wandered in off the street to rent a room only to become her antique store's savior. Add in a third boarder, weird Myron who keeps blood in the fridge, and Amanda's wish that her Mom was more like June Cleaver, and you have an amusing cast of quirky characters that are surprisingly compelling.

The book is well-written and funny, and I enjoyed it more than I anticipated. The book resonates because it has heart, and the oddball characters all have a pathos that make their stories compelling. All in all an excellent summer read; I look forward to the next installment in this unusual series. 4 stars. show less

If there isn't another book after this I'm going to have to hunt the author down and chain her to a chair and force her to continue writing books. She ends this book with a "The End---Or is it?" How cruel is that?

This is a funny series with well drawn, believable characters and you just know if they were real they would be among your best friends.

An amusing and briskly moving story line keeps you glued to the page and makes this a fairly quick read. The mystery was such that I just didn't show more see the person 'whodunnit' until they bit me on the butt, so you will be happy to just go with the flow of the story! Very clever!

While you do not necessarily NEED to read the first bookTake the Monkeys and Run: A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery, I highly recommend that you do. I still wish I had re-read it before I picked Citizen Insane up just to refresh my memory. show less