Alpine Journey [Mass Market Paperback]

Planning on driving herself, her House & Home editor, Vida Runkel tells her she's going away for the weekend and will be going through Portland and will drop her off.

Emma barely has a day with her friend before Vida calls her to tell her she's was visiting some Runkels who live in Cannon Beach and that her Niece, Audrey Imhoff had been murdered the previous month and her husband, Gordon had disappeared, leaving three kids home alone.

Leaving immediately, Emma finds herself involved with a group of Runkels that are even more disturbing than the ones who live in Alpine. Audrey, was planning on divorcing her husband Gordon and leaving her three children to go off and start a new life.

Someone put a stop to that by bashing her head in one night as she came out of the water on her usual midnight swim. Gordon's disappearance after the funeral only leads to more speculation, was he angry over her divorcing him, or the fact that she was allegedly having affairs with the college student who took summer jobs in town. Why were the kids, 19 or 20 year old Derek, 16 or 17 year old Stacie & 14 year old Molly so anxioux for their father not to come back home. (The ages of the two older kids aren't clearly stated.)

Emma & Vida question all the suspects and finally come to a shocking conclusion as to why the murder was committed and by whom.

Highlights:

A phone call from the idiot Ed Bronsky, who's going to pay a vanity press to publish his autobiography, the wonderfully title, "Mr. Ed."

Leo & Carla's attempts at putting out the newspaper. They don't see a problem with putting the Planned Parenthoods ad next to the birth announcements.

Lowlights:

What can I say, the storyline was boring, there was no reason for them to investigate this case. Vida had never met any of these relatives, they didn't even exchange Christmas cards, yet she get so involved that she refuses to leave until the crime is solved. Despite the fact that nobody wants her help and these relatives by marriage don't like her and make it very plain that they don't like or want her around.

Vida is totally obnoxious, rude and heartless in this book. I found that I didn't like her at all. I don't understand why Emma went along with her harebrained ideas, or put up with her attitude.

And I cried at the end. (I cry easily. I think I get too involved in these series.) Pages 298 - 304, I won't spoil it by saying what happened, but it wasn't a surprise and I have hope that maybe the author will fix it in future books.

I think Emma should stay home. The previous book where she solved a crime away was "Alpine Escape", which involved Mavis's pregnant daughter & son-in-law. In that case, it was interesting, because she was solving a 100 year old murder, how she found clues and solved the crime was interesting. This time, with real living people involved, and very unintersting, obnoxious people at that, I didn't care. I didn't care who killed Audrey, or why. The only person you felt sorry for in this entire story turned out to be the killer. (Knowing that shouldn't spoil the storyline as you don't feel sorry for them until you find out they are the killer.)

I really disliked this book, but couldn't give it 1 star because as much as I disliked it, it is still better than many other books of this type, just not up to the authors usual standards.

Although Emma Lord is the star of this series, she takes a backseat to her sidekick, Vida Runkle, in this book, and the reversal does not work well. Runkle comes across as a meanspirited, insensitive detective who shows little consideration a loyal and injured Emma Lord. Meanwhile, the author spends far too much time lecturing us on the value of family and that "blood is thicker that water." Combined with a weak plot, this relentless harping on family (despite the fact that Runkle has never met most of the branch of the family she is now meddling with) make this one of the least enjoyable books in the series.