Done Gone Wrong

Blue Ridge Mountain Mysteries #2

by Cathy Pickens

TAKE FOUR PILLS A DAY--
A chance to be a part of a headline-grabbing case against a drug company has lured attorney Avery Andrews back to Charleston, South Carolina. She agrees to meet with Mark Tilman, a young doctor from her home town who seems to have something on his mind. When he doesn't show, she figures he stood her up and takes comfort in the stilt restaurant's she-crab soup. But it turns out he had a fatal car accident. Something about the crash isn't right, and Mark's father asks Avery to look into his death. Between that and digging up dirt on the wonder drug Uplift, Avery is coming up with more questions than answers.

AND DIE…
Of course, Avery isn't the only one making headlines. Back in Dacus, her mom is on live television confronting a teenager's dynamite-toting paramour in a hostage crisis at the Burger Hut, Great-Aunt Aletha is mixing it up with the now-toupee-less postman, and the son of a ghost wants vengeance. In short, it's life as usual back in Dacus, while in Charleston, Avery is forced to face demons from her own past…

Genres: Mystery, Cozy Mystery, Fiction, Cozy, Mystery Thriller, Southern

302 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2005

About the author

Crime writer Cathy Pickens started her writing life as a mystery novelist. The first of five mysteries in the Southern Fried series won St. Martin’s Award for Best New Traditional Mystery.

Her fascination with the power of real crime stories led to a series for History Press, starting with Charleston Mysteries and Charlotte True Crime Stories.

She is a frequent mystery convention panelist, speaking on topics ranging from Southern mysteries to classic true crime stories to the use of poisons. At various times and under various aliases, she’s been a trial attorney specializing in complex civil litigation; a university provost; a business school professor (at Queens University of Charlotte); a church organist and choir director; and a ballroom and clog dance coach.

She has served as national president of Sisters in Crime, on the national board of Mystery Writers of America, and a founding board member of the regional Forensic Medicine Program.

Based on her book CREATE! Develop Your Creative Process, she offers workshops on developing the creative process. She also coaches and teaches new writers through Charlotte Lit, and works with former inmates and those in rehab on starting their own businesses and writing their own stories.

Reviews

[January · Rating 2 out of 5]

Murder at Folly Beach Creek by Cathy Pickens
Blue Ridge Mountain Mystery #2
previously published as Done Gone Wrong, Southern Fried Mystery #2
9h 30m narrated by Tiffany Morgan, 297 pages

Genre: Mystery Thriller, Cozy Mystery

Featuring: Epigraph; Columbia, Charleston, and Fictional Small-Town South Carolina; Lawyer MC, Southern Food, February, Lawsuit, Doctors, Bad Medicine, Investigation, Courtroom, Overtalking

Rating as a movie: PG-15 for adult language, sexual innuendos, and descriptions of violence

My rating: ⭐️⭐️½💊🏛

My thoughts: 📱17% 1:38:48 Ch. 6 - I don't appreciate Tillman being used in this book. It actually slow enough to make me want to watch TV, but since I'm being blocked by football. I'm going back to my nonfiction book.

This was easy to guess if you've ever seen The Fugitive, but getting from the obvious to the reveal was tedious and I just wasn't a fan of the content or delivery. Very dated, especially for 2005.

Recommend to others: Not likely

Blue Ridge Mountain Mystery aka South Fried Mystery
1 Murder at Luna Lake (2004)
aka Southern Fried
2 Murder at Folly Beach Creek (2005)
aka Done Gone Wrong
3 Murder at the Golden Cove Forest (2007)
aka Hog Wild
4 Murder at Moody Springs Lookout (2008)
aka Hush My Mouth
5 Murder at Bow Falls (2009)
aka Can't Never Tell

[StillReadingBooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this is the second book in the series that I read that I found on my TBR shelf and I have no idea how it got there. It is the same main character of Avery Andrews except while the last one took place in our hometown this one takes place in Charleston South Carolina. In a nutshell Avery is back in Charleston helping a friend working on the case except in this particular scenario she is working for the plaintive in a drug case and they are offshoot stories while she is there and she gets involved and of course solving murder because that’s what cozy mystery do. .I really like the way that the story started there were some very predictable pieces to it though. And I guessed it ended some with the way I thought it was going to end. But she is mildly likable and the characters are somewhat interesting to read about so I have one more on my shelf. I’m going to read it but this is not a series that I feel compelled to purchase every single one or check them all out of the library and complete the series.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another adventure of Avery Andrews, lawyer from western South Carolina. This one is a medical thriller with the intrigue and danger surrounding big pharma drug testing and the lengths some people will go to get a drug on the market. Avery is in Charleston in this one, helping an ambulance chaser who is claiming an antidepressant turned a man into a homicidal maniac who killed and maimed several coworkers. she has her work cut out for her.

I didn't like this one as much as the first one for two reasons: 1) The setting was not Dacus so we didn't get that small town oddness. 2) I am not partial to medical things. The writing was good and the story kept me reading though right up until the last page. My reasons for not liking it as much had nothing to do with the quality of the work.

It made also me want a praline!

[Judy Hardwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the 2nd book in a series about Avery Anderson, a young attorney trying to find her niche in her career after being fired from a high powered job. This book was better written than the first and brings to light several situations for Avery to become involved in - turns out that they are all connected [there were hints along the way -] And Avery didn't so much solve the murder[s]s as she was curious enough to get herself into a situation where it was all confessed to her. I'm intrigued with this young attorney and the different paths she has available for herself. Looking forward to book 3...

[Mary Ronan Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second in a series about a South Carolina lawyer who has been fired for telling one of her own witnesses that he is lying - while he is testifying. She can't settle down so goes home to a small town and in this book is restless and takes on a project to help a friend in Charleston in a trial hinging on whether a depressant makes the people taking it dangerous. The first book was filled with more or less believable characters from the lawyer's home town, but this book, even after a few chapters to get settled into the story, does not have the same appeal. For me.

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Mystery
Welcome to South Carolina, where the hospitality is warm and the murder is stone-cold. Attorney sleuth Avery Andrews has quickly built up a reputation for being the go-to girl when a mystery arises. So when she is called to historic Charleston to get to the bottom of a fresh and perplexing case, she is more than ready for the challenge.
This is a good mystery. Between the dead bodies and the riddle of the bad medicine they were not in a good position. I borrowed this book from Kindle Unlimited. This in no way affects my opinion of this book.

[Megan]

Eh, not my kind of thing. It felt... mean, I guess. Which, you know, characters are allowed to be mean, but this felt unintentionally mean. Little snide comments here and there about people of color and especially poor people. Is it a southern thing? Or am I just a namby-pamby midwesterner? Either way, the explanations at the end felt extremely forced. It's the villain's turn to speak. Then he passes the conch shell to the other villain so he can speak. Then it's the cop's turn. Then it's Avery's.

[Sarah Woodring · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy fast paced read.

I really enjoy the southern fried books. Done gone wrong follows Avery Andrews through drug company court battle and of course she always has a side mystery to solve. I think the author keeps the story moving and keeps me wondering what is gonna happen next.

[Mary Knopp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book

This is a medical malpractice story where the lawyer has switched sides and is assisting the the plaintiff side. It provides an inside view of what goes on in companies doing testing on new medications.

[Tomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was better than the first in the series. The mystery was crafted in such a way that it was hard to solve until the end. The author also kept the "stereotypical southern crazies" to a more tolerable level.

[Whitney · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was okay and I enjoyed it at face value. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Val · Rating 3 out of 5]

Avery just can't help but get herself into interesting situations. These books make for some fun reading.

[Gloria Nelson]

Good book but I got lost in all the legal stuff.

[MaryAnn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series moves between the mountains and the coast while attorney Avery Andrews struggles to find herself and win the case of the moment.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

[Linda Metz]

This novel was average reading. The plot was not that great and the book was not difficult to put down. The three star rating was the best I could rate it.

[Karin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who killed Mark Tilman and why??? And Tabitha??? Mark may be unavailable right now, but Avery will figure things out, won't she??? I enjoyed this story and recommended the book.

[Mylene · Rating 2 out of 5]

Liked the first part, didn't like the second part :(

[Beverly Downing · Rating 4 out of 5]

mountainy mystery

Fun read and just enough unique to keep me reading. It was a good way to pass a summer weekend.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting. Did not like the ending. Just not my best book read

[Sheri Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still not too sure about this series. It seems like the main character does nothing but stumble around and solves cases by accident.

[Dionna Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book!!

Loved this book. This series is really good. The characters are great!! Highly recommend this series to all to read

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not high-brow literature, but a cute little cozy mystery. Heavy on the country accent. Kept me interested on a long car trip. Might check out another in this series,

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe it's because I was tired when I started reading this, but I feel like I missed something at the beginning.

[Debby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the story interesting in the plot aspect. The courtroom portions of the book were very tedious and seemed to take forever to get through. I don't know if this series is for me.

[P.J. Coldren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Avery Andrews had a case blow up in her face, and she's been hiding out for a little while. Jake Baker has lured her back into a courtroom, on the side of the plaintiff, in a suit against a drug company who manufactured and marketed an antidepressant drug.
Seems a forklift driver with a bad history took his semiautomatic arsenal to work one day and killed a bunch of people, including himself. And the deepest pockets belong to the makers of Uplift, the drug that apparently didn't help one man.

Jake wants Avery to watch things in court, give him some pointers, seek out the weaknesses in the defendant’s case. No jury selecting, just someone on his side who's been there in the trenches. Avery is up for that.

Unfortunately, the case for the plaintiff doesn't seem very strong. Avery helps Jake as best she can, but her attention has been diverted by the death of Mark Tilman. Greg and Avery had some history, and Mark wants to talk to her about "something terribly important". Of course, he is killed before Avery can find out what exactly that is. Mark's father wants Avery to look into the accident.

And back at home, Avery's mom is making headlines of her own. Great-Aunt Aletha has a new romance. Someone wants vengeance. You know, life in a small town. Same old, same old. Avery is pretty sure she's glad to be back in Charleston, but she's not quite sure.

Avery realizes, somewhat belatedly (for those of us who read a lot of mysteries), that whatever Mark wanted to tell her is connected to
the Uplift case. The exact tie-in eludes her for quite some time, and when she does realize precisely what is going on, she almost gets herself killed. Not the smartest move Avery's ever made, but she has placed her trust in an unlikely protector, who comes through for her.

Avery Andrews is a flawed, funny, empathetic, dynamic, and very human character. Her defects are what make her worth reading about. The plot is well within the bounds of possibility, which is scary when one really thinks about it. Pickens brings Charleston to life, making the reader want to visit and soak in the ambience.

If SOUTHERN FRIED was your kind of mystery, then DONE GONE WRONG will be just right for you. DONE GONE WRONG IS a solid mystery with great characters, a good plot, and just enough humor to balance out the bad guys.

[Suzanna · Rating 1 out of 5]

The best part of this book was the writer's style, and that she had obviously done her homework on FDA drug approval procedures. (I would hope so, since she teaches law and ethics at a university.) Otherwise, I was very disappointed.

The main character of the novel is Avery Andrews, who also starred in the other two books I read by Pickens, Hog Wild and Hush my Mouth. In those I liked her, but I had a lot of trouble with her in this one. She was painfully obtuse and unable to put two and two together throughout the read. I can't imagine a real person allowing the obvious to escape her, but still making it through college - let alone law school. It made it too difficult to identify with Avery.

Overall, this book was terribly predictable, even in the sideline events. Not one I can recommend.

[Dharia Scarab · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I don't normally write reviews unless I have something specific to say, here's the break down of how I rate my books...

1 star... This book was bad, so bad I may have given up and skipped to the end. I will avoid this author like the plague in the future.

2 stars... This book was not very good, and I won't be reading any more from the author.

3 stars... This book was ok, but I won't go out of my way to read more, But if I find another book by the author for under a dollar I'd pick it up.

4 stars... I really enjoyed this book and will definitely be on the look out to pick up more from the series/author.

5 stars... I loved this book! It has earned a permanent home in my collection and I'll be picking up the rest of the series and other books from the author ASAP.

[Erika · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this installment, but not as much as the previous books. I think because it wasn't set in Dacus but instead in Charleston.
That and the fact that the mystery involved mental health drugs and drug trials and since I work in the mental health industry, it wasn't exactly interesting to new to me.

I much prefer the smaller, more intimate stories that she set in Dacus.

The characters were as well written and I wouldn't mind meeting Det. Casper Kirland again but I am glad that I know she moves the stories back to Dacus and its locals. If I had thought she was going to continue in this vein I might have walked away from the series, for me it made that much of a difference.

[Shonda Franks · Rating 2 out of 5]

So far I am about 28% of the way through this book and my god is it so full of medical/pharmaceutical/lawyer jargon I am bored stupid. It is all I can do to make myself pick up this book and keep reading. Which is upsetting since the end of the year is coming and I pledged 100 books and have about 2 more to go to meet my goal. :(

Its 2 weeks later and i just finished this book. It took me a lot longer than it normally takes me to read a book. I found it boring and uneventful for the most part. I liked the first book better. With that being said I am tenacious if nothing else and will be starting the next book right now. Wish me luck....one book to go for the month of December to reach my 100 book pledge.