KILLER CLASSICS by Kym Roberts is the fifth novel in the Book Barn Mystery Series. It is due out on December 4th 2018 by Lyrical Underground. The other books in the Book Barn Mystery Series are FATAL FICTION (December 6th 2016 by Lyrical Underground), A Reference to murder (May 16th 2017 by Lyrical Underground), PERILOUS POETRY (October 10th 2017 by Lyrical Underground), and lethal literature (May 1st 2018 by Lyrical Underground).
In KILLER CLASSICS, art imitates life. And then life imitates art. After a brief stay in Hazel Rock, Texas, author Nathan Daniels publishes a mystery novels that is loosely based on the residents of the small town. When the real-life woman whom the fictional victim was based on is murdered in almost the same way that she was in the novel, Charli Rae Warren gets caught up in solving the murder and exonerating her friends. Charli is the proprietress of the Book Barn Princess bookstore, and she might also be the killer's next victim.
KILLER CLASSICS is the first of the Book Barn Mystery series that I've read, and I felt a bit hindered having not read the other novels. I feel like the characters, relationships, locations, and circumstances needed to be explained a bit more for others who have not read any of the previous novels. That being said, I don't really feel compelled to read the other novels in this series. I couldn't get invested in any of the characters or their lives. Charli mostly annoyed me, and her overused exclamation of "fuzz buckets!" made me want to scream. I found KILLER CLASSICS to be a bit goofy and jumbled. For me, at least, there was no mystery when it came to identifying the killer. I had the killer pegged from his first appearance in the novel, and his motive was also a bit of a stretch to believe. Overall, a mindless, sometimes funny cozy mystery.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.