Scot Free

Catriona McPherson

Jul 2020 · A Last Ditch mystery Book 1 · Severn House Publishers Ltd

About this ebook

Lexy Campbell fights to prove the innocence of a client she's been providing marriage guidance to after she is accused of murdering her husband.

It's the Fourth of July in California and Lexy Campbell is headed home to Scotland. But first she must deliver her final dose of marriage guidance to the elderly Bombarros. They don't turn up for the session, but the cops do. Turns out Mr Bombarro is in the morgue and Mrs Bombarro is in the jail, arrested for murder.

Certain of the old lady's innocence, Lexy decides to stay and clear her name. But after her own recent whirlwind divorce, she's got no money and no place to stay. So she checks into the Last Ditch Motel.

As the plucky little band of motel guests start to take over Lexy's life, and the shady Bombarro relations come to town, one thing is for sure . . . the fireworks have only just begun.

Ratings and reviews

Having read an ARC of the fourth book in the series I was sufficiently intrigued to buy the first book and see where it all began. Lexy Campbell is originally from Dundee, Scotland. A marriage counsellor she moved to California in a whirlwind romance and marriage. Unfortunately, things went rapidly downhill, the things she found charming about the small (fictional) town of Cuento, Beteo County are just what her husband hates. He has a beige house and doesn't understand her humour (I have to say taking Spotted Dick to a potluck party seems odd, done just for the novelty factor of the name rather than something anyone would want to eat!). Anyway, the marriage implodes when Lexy finds her husband boinking his ex-wife in their bed and four weeks later, thanks to Reno, the two of them are divorced. Lexy is about to leave California for good, she just has one last couples guidance session booked for a sweet old couple in their eighties called the Bombaros who are finally divorcing. Mrs Bombaro has asked Lexy to witness the signatures on their divorce papers and Lexy is happy to oblige. Unfortunately, the Bombaros never arrive. Mr Bombaro, a famous firework manufacturer, has been murdered, Mrs Bombaro has been arrested for his murder, and she is asking for Lexy's support. So Lexy shelves her plans to return to Scotland and tries to find a motel room (on the Fourth of July) which is how she comes across the Last Ditch Motel. The mystery is very reminiscent of the early Stephanie Plum novels (a firework manufacturer being murdered by having a firework inserted in his anatomy), as are the inhabitants of the motel. There's a lot of comedic value drawn from the differences between American English and Scottish English which might get a bit repetitive after a while. If you like zany or kooky comedy and/or cosy detective stories then I think this series may be for you.

Scot, fun-with-language-misinterpretation, California, family, family-business, family-dynamics, friendship, hotel, laugh-out-loud, laugh-riot, law-enforcement, divorce, counselling, murder, murder-investigation, punny, situational-humor, snark-fest, verbal-humor, slapstick, LGBT***** I bought this one which starts the series because I read the one coming out in 2022 (Scot Mist) and ab-so-lute-ly laughed my sox off! This is the beginning where Lexy (native to Scotland) has recently divorced her American dentist for shagging his first wife after living in California for months and trying to get her counselling license transferred to the US. That's just the set-up. From there she goes with her 86-year-old client to the jail, meets an interesting police detective, takes refuge in the Last Ditch Hotel, meets some very quirky tenants, and moves in for real. And the sleuthing has already begun! DON'T MISS THIS! This one does not have COVID in the background, but it IS guaranteed to make you forget about lockdowns and stuff for an afternoon!

About the author

Born and raised in Edinburgh, Catriona McPherson left Edinburgh University with a PhD in Linguistics and worked in academia, as well as banking and public libraries, before taking up full-time writing in 2001. For the last ten years she has lived in Northern California with a black cat and a scientist. In 2020 she has been shortlisted for a third Mary Higgins Clark Award, for Strangers at the Gate, and won her second Left Coast Crime Lefty Award in the Best Humorous Mystery category for the Last Ditch series, this time for Scot and Soda. www.catrionamcpherson.com