Lucy gets the chance to attend newspaper conference in Boston. She is excited to be in the city with colleagues, though she is a bit anxious about leaving her family for a week. It’s not long before rumors circulate about the financial state of newspapers in general and their future, and about a particular newspaper which is being honored at the conference. When the head of this newspaper dynasty drops dead, all wonder, was it a natural death or murder. Because the paper was in financial difficulties, the question is who will benefit from his death? Lucy can’t help getting involved in the investigation, but she has few resources in Boston to aid her research. And by the time she puzzles it all out, after some delaying false leads, it is almost too late. It’s always fun to watch Lucy go through her paces. This installment is a bit out of the ordinary, taking place away from her family and every day life. But Lucy remains the same: inquisitive, loyal, friendly, and hard-working. This cozy is intriguing and entertaining, just like the rest of the series. ( )

I expected to be returning back to Tinker's Cove, Maine for the fourth time this year for my June selection in the Calendar of Crime Reading Challenge. However, this installment of the Lucy Stone series takes place in Boston. Here we have Lucy traveling to Boston for a newspaper conference the week before Father's Day. As would be expected in a cozy mystery, someone at the conference is murdered. This time it was the newspaperman of the year Luther Read. The suspected cause of death was a new one for the series, an asthma attack. Since I have asthma myself, I knew exactly where the story was going. Other new aspects to the plot were that Lucy did not have any conflicts with law enforcement officers investigating the murder and none of her family members or friends were suspects. It's always good to see a series author keep the writing fresh with changes in the writing formula but it can easily go bad. This was not the case with the Father's Day Murder. My only issue with the book was that Lucy's family life took up too many pages in the novel. They were not pertinent to the plot so why were they there? In the other cozy mysteries that I follow, character development is worked into the plot action. I know many of Meier's readers prefer this but I do not. ( )

This was a change in pace for Lucy Stone. Sent to Boston for a newspaper conference, Lucy (as usual) becomes embroiled in a murder investigation when a local summer vacationer from Tinker’s Cove whose father owns a huge media corporation is accused of murder. But is he really the killer? And while Lucy is away, can her husband and kids keep from destroying her house, letting the dog eat the neighbor’s chickens and getting in fights without her there to keep the peace? Fun notes of touristy Boston!

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader.
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Please see all of my reviews on my blog at https://www.robinlovesreading.com.

Part-time reporter Lucy Stone is about to get a break from her family to attend a newspaper conference. Unfortunately, it is just before Father’s Day, so Lucy has some juggling to do. It’s not as fun as she imagines. She misses her family more than she thought she would, the panels are rather boring, and some of the other attendees really get on her nerves.

Shockingly, Luther Read, owner of a virtually bankrupt newspaper suddenly dies, and the circumstances are quite suspicious, despite being first ruled an asthma attack. As a matter of fact, Luther had enemies, so there is more than one suspect.

Luther Read is no stranger to Lucy. His family has a second home in Lucy’s hometown of Tinker’s Cove. So, per usual, Lucy decides to investigate. All the while, Lucy gets to enjoy parts of Boston and even has time to shop for her family. Meanwhile, husband Bill works hard at running their household.

As Lucy goes further in seeking out Luther’s murderer, she again places herself in harm’s way. This cozy mystery is fast-paced with Lucy being out of her element, while she excels at being an amateur detective. Father’s Day Murder is book ten in the series. The next book is Star Spangled Murder with twenty-five to-date. These are all delightful reads and I look forward to continuing. ( )

Note: Even though this is Book 10 in the series, it worked just fine as a stand alone novel.

Lucy Stone works part time at The Penny Saver newspaper in Tinker’s Cove, Maine and her boss, Tom, wants her to attend a newspaper conference in Boston. She’s very excited to be getting a week away to the big city, but she’s worried that her family won’t be able to manage without her. While in Boston, a death livens up the boring conference panels and Lucy finds herself far more interested in investigating the murder than in the conference.

The story starts off with some household drama as things seem to be falling apart at home even before Lucy leaves for the bus station to head to Boston. Their big dog Kudo got into the neighbor’s chickens, again. Her husband, Bill, is having a big argument with their son Toby. Her oldest daughter Elizabeth is off on her summer job as a nanny to a three-year-old. The twins, Sara and Zoe, are mucking about. Honestly, I thought Bill might end up dead and Lucy would have to solve a murder long-distance from Boston. He came off as rather selfish and a bit of a jerk. He wasn’t pleased that Lucy would be off the week before Father’s Day because he likes to be pampered on this special day. All that made me roll my eyes a bit.

Alas, it wasn’t Bill who died but rather Luther Read, head of a newspaper dynasty, while at the Boston conference. His family was there, including his grown children Junior and Caroline, and they are immediately under suspicion. I did like this core mystery. There were plenty of interesting characters, though I did think it was a little obvious who did not do it even if Lucy and the police suspected them at some point.

A chunk of the book is Boston site-seeing and shopping. Indeed, Lucy has an almost erotic thing for shoes and toe cleavage (which made her a little quirky which is cool). While I didn’t mind the site-seeing stuff, I haven’t been to Boston so, for me, it was just page filler. Also, all the shopping for special name brand stuff was rather boring to me as I didn’t recognize any of the labels and don’t really care for shoe shopping, etc. Luckily, audiobooks allow multi-tasking so I wasn’t wasting my time during these parts of the book.

The book did live up the cozy mystery category. There’s no bloody scenes and our main character is never damaged (except by her fancy stylish shoes). I did get tired of Lucy’s horrid family after a while. They aren’t good at solving their own problems and Lucy is definitely the glue that holds them together. Basically, the story is riddled with one person or the other complaining about something. However, to balance that out a bit, we have the interesting Read family. They are all guarded to some extent, wanting to keep their private lives private and yet they are unfailingly polite to everyone, even invasive reporters. I also liked Morgan for her go-gettem attitude even if I didn’t approve of all her methods. The ending had a bit of drama to it, which I liked. All told, this book was so-so for me.

I received a free copy of this book with no strings attached.

The Narration: Karen White was a very good choice for this book. I loved all the regional accents she managed. Also, her male characters sounded masculine. Her upper cut, educated voices for the Read family in general were very well done. I liked her voice for Lucy and how she captured Lucy’s emotions at any given time, even her excitement over shoe shopping. ( )