I love cozy mysteries, quirky characters, and outrageous stories, but this collection fell short from delivering. I tried to like Geneva and Iris, the MC and her sidekick, but they were just entitled, judgmental, and there was no character development whatsoever. After a couple of mysteries, they just start telling suspects that they are private detectives, and the police department just lets them do whatever they please, because apparently they’re just utterly useless. The narrative is not focused, sometimes too repetitive, other times contradictory. And the mysteries were either too easy to solve, or suddenly solved by divine inspiration, but not by logically following the clues. Murders are somehow solved, but other crimes, like vandalism or theft, are left unsolved, and never to be spoken of again.
I did enjoy how the characters bring up Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, or other masters of mystery stories, as “inspiration” during their investigations. Too bad Mrs. Pomolo can’t begin to compare to Holmes or Miss Marple.
I managed to read almost half of the series, but I had to give up. I hate leaving books (or series) unfinished, but I just got bored.