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Another New Year has arrived. We have a fresh, clean slate to fill. I really hope your plans for 2019 include lots of reading. I don’t care if it’s magazines, papers or books; just as long as you give yourself the gift of reading - even a little - every day.

With more time spent in the passenger seat I selected an e-book so I could read after dark. “Pineapple Land Wars” by Amy Vansant turned out to be the fourth in her Pineapple Port Mystery series but stood alone fairly well.

After Charlotte’s parents were killed in a car accident, she was raised by her grandmother at a retirement community in Pineapple Port, Florida. Charlotte is now grown up and still lives in her grandmother’s apartment. This allows Charlotte plenty of time to work on the requirements for her private investigator’s license and as well as get time with her boyfriend Declan.

Declan’s Uncle Seamus is a retired PI who came to visit and stayed. Declan owns a local pawn shop and employs a very large man named Blade. This book had a very tangled plot filled with revenge, manipulations, ulterior motives and double-crosses. Far too many to detail here, but I’ll give you an outline.

Extremely wealthy William “Bucky” Bloom fell from the roof of his “love nest” and was impaled on the mast of his sailboat. As soon as word got out, Penny hired Charlotte to help her buy Cow Town, a piece of land next door to the retirement community. The property was owned by Bucky and now belongs to his widow, Cora.

It’s called Cow Town because it is leased as a cow pasture. When they visit the widow, Cora Bloom, they find that Penny’s estranged twin sister Tabitha is also there to make a bid on Cow Town. Cora lashes out, telling them that she knows that both Penny and Tabitha had affairs with Bucky.

Declan’s ex-girlfriend Stephanie is a lawyer. She makes no secret that she wants Declan back and has done some underhanded things to make it happen, but Declan knows that Stephanie’s mother is a fugitive serial killer and Stephanie has inherited many of her ruthless traits.

No one understands why, but Stephanie is now representing Cora, and through her the sisters find themselves in a contest to win the opportunity to buy the land. Suddenly the women are arm wrestling and doing other equally humiliating tasks to earn points.

She also challenges Charlotte to determine if Bucky’s death was accidental or murder. As she investigates she learns that Blade has found a cat that has no front legs and only one eye. Amazingly it can and does walk on its hind legs. Charlotte discovers that the cat belongs to the man who runs the local doll shop. When they can’t reach him they visit to the convenience store next door. That conversation puts Charlotte on alert for foul play.

She decides to try late-night surveillance, which soon turns into the ride of her life. She ends up smelling pretty bad but solves the case. With some intuition and determination, Charlotte finds enough clues to form a theory about how Bucky went off that roof and who was involved. When she shares that information with Cora, the woman faints.

Charlotte has no way of knowing that she has struck very close to home until the sale of Cow Town is final. After a little thought, Charlotte and Declan have their suspicions about why that piece of land was so important to an unknown party. It gives them even more reason to avoid Stephanie. Naturally, we’ll find out more in book number five!

Whenever I find an author I like, I am thrilled to know they are part of a series. Your public library has all kinds of books in series. Just go in and check it out.

AT A GLANCE

BOOK: “Pineapple Land Wars”

AUTHOR: Amy Vansant

PUBLISHER: Amazon digital Services LLC

PUBLISHED: Feb. 14, 2017

PAGES: 214

 

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