White Nights (The Coast-To-Coast Michigan Mysteries) (edition 2022)

1.5 stars. I received this book as part of the Early Reviewer program on LibraryThing. I was very excited when I won, being a native Michigander, but I ended up being quite disappointed. Another reviewer commented that it had not been mentioned that this was the second in the series. Because of that, it took a while to figure out what was going on and if I really needed to figure out who Ann was (you don’t) and how everyone ended up together.
I gave this book more than one star as it did keep me reading. The writing felt awkward at times and the often author jumped into a new scene without any preamble. Near the end it got particularly confusing. A lot of conversations and events were added too that were totally off topic. I still don’t know who Tansy is…
The premise of the book also didn’t sit well with me. A murder occurs and a waitress suggests that a man she just met, who looks like a cop, help her boyfriend, the local sheriff, solve the crime. I’m thinking that is not correct police procedure… 🙄 And then after this adventure, everyone involved becomes best friends to the point of asking life changing advice from someone to whom they have said 10 sentences. Hmmm, not buying that either.
The author did mention a lot of Michigan places and food, but I didn’t get any sense of the beauty of that state.
I did like the quirkiness of the 4 main characters, though at times this seemed like a very forced comedy. To be honest, if it wasn’t for this review, I think I would have stopped reading and went on to something a bit better. ( )

This book had an interesting story and a great setting which gave it potential but the storyline was a little choppy. I kept getting confused about the characters - I'm not sure if that's because I didn't read the first book or if they were just not well enough developed to connect individually. The story was a little loose, with random things happening that did not seem to fit. I think most of the issues could be resolved with tighter editing. Overall, I enjoyed it enough that I would consider reading another book in the series. ( )

I’ve lived in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (known throughout Michigan as “the UP”) for the past six years, and I love it here. It’s a great blend of northern wilderness, wonderful people, and year-round outdoor sports and adventure opportunities. Deb Davies’s White Nights is set here in the UP, so I had high hopes for this book. It’s a thriller about two couples on vacation who find themselves thrust into the middle of a murder investigation.

This is the second book in Davies’s Coast-to-Coast Michigan Mystery series. The four characters in the book are the same four main characters from her first book, Northern Light (which I have not read). In this book we first encounter them as they converse over dinner at a culinary school along the Lake Huron coast. There really is such a school, and I appreciated the great job Davies does highlighting some of the UP’s attractions.

Another thing she’s done well is to come up with the book’s plot. A local officer investigating an apparent suicide case suspects it may in fact be murder. The couples get drawn into the case because one of them is an ex-cop. The local officer is grateful for the outsider’s help as small town politics have left him untrusting that the victim would get a fair shake if he shared his suspicions with his Sheriff. Seems he and the Sheriff don’t get along.

This introduction to the case is followed by a series of escalating events making it clear that someone doesn’t want the truth to be revealed.

Now, unfortunately, while I liked the idea of this book, I found the execution wanting.

Firstly there are the characters in the book. The two couples are a very confusing bunch. It took me until about half way through the book to be able to keep straight who was paired with who and how they related to one another. They swear ALOT, dropping f-bombs throughout the book.

One of the men is very interested in birds and nature, so the couples’ conversations are often punctuated by paragraphs-long discourses from him about local wildlife or local history.

One of the women is an avid reader and frequently drops references to authors and books she’s read.

At one point in the book one of the couples has a lengthy discussion about how the woman wants to have breast reduction surgery.

These conversational gambits are, I think, meant to add local spice or to enrich our understanding of the characters over the arc of the series. But they were simply dropped into the story without any connection to anything else going on, and so made the story more confusing.

And then there was the plot, which, while it’s a good one, unfolded badly. By that I mean that things just kind of happen. For instance, one of the couples takes their camper on a side trip, and they are suddenly confronted with a truck driver who runs them off the road. He then jumps out of his truck and tries to shoot them. Thankfully they escape due to the quick action of the woman.

But confusingly, there was absolutely no build up to this event, it just happened. And then the bad guy truck driver was quickly disposed of by the even badder villain of the story. In a couple of paragraphs. Paragraphs that are completely disconnected from the story around them.

There are more plot disconnects, and more character issues that I could talk about, but you get the idea.

The bottom line for me is that, with better editing I really think this could have been an excellent thriller. Sadly, written as it is, it didn’t live up to my high hopes. So much so that I can’t recommend it. It’s a Two Star ⭐⭐ read for me.

NOTE: I received an advanced copy of this book courtesy of LibraryThing and BHC Press. In return I am providing a fair and unbiased review. This book will be released on April 19, 2022. ( )

Poor. Not helped by being somewhere later in a series with no indication that this is the case. The opening is hence a lot of catching up as two pairs of couples attempt to recuperate from some previous tragedy by holidaying togther on the coast of one of Michigan's great lakes. This - as much of the rest of the book - is done by a lot of telling and very little showing. The characters are, not exactly thin, but very one dimensional - there's the anxious one, the focused one, the detective one etc. They bumble around for a bit before the detective is recognized (how?) and asked to assist a local case because the actual police had fallen out with the local commissioner. Maybe this makes sense in the context of US politics but seems very weird to a global audience. So the detective starts looking at the crime scene where of one of the local down and out residents had died/ been killed, but he gets abducted by a odd couple acting on someone else's orders. Once it's established whot he bad guy is we get cutaways to his motivation - this is perhaps my least favourite authorial writing style, and it's particularly badly done here. Either the antagonist is a character in their own right, or they aren't, but a few flashbacks to attempt to make sense of their action is just poor writing.

Eventually there's a big fight with a random passerby (although possibly known to the characters from previously it's not clear), providing the finishing violence. The only satisfaction is that it's all over. ( )

This book deals with 2 couples who are vacationing together in Michigan. A woman is killed and the couples get involved in the mystery of who did it. This was a very confusing book to me but I think it is because it’s the second book in the series which I haven’t read. Lots of interesting characters and on the whole I liked it ( )