Three at Wolfe's Door by Rex Stout

Poison a la Carte
One of the stories pulled for the 90s TV series, this story was not told beat by beat but the idea was there. A group of men like to eat the finest foods and they wish to borrow Fritz for this year's occasion. It's just too bad that one of the men dies. It had to be one of the twelve actresses hired as servers but which one?
  Method Three for Murder 
Archie has quit but as he's walking out of Nero's house, there's a woman walking up. She had a bet with a friend concerning women taxi drivers but wasn't expecting a dead body to show up in the cab she was driving. Especially not the woman her husband was having an affair with.
  The Rodeo Murder
This one was hard to read because of all of the "western speak." Basically, there's a rodeo in town and one of the backers, a man who was known to be handsy with the ladies, is killed.

Read this one because of the review on Classic Mysteries podcast. It was fine but not my favorite collection.

Three stars
This book came out April 29th, 1960
Bought on Nook
Opinions are my own

Dance Away with Me by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

If you like a Man Who Steps Up, this might be a book for you. It takes awhile but Ian North eventually falls in line. Tess Hartsong is emotionally brittle. Her husband died young and, two years later, she is still working through her grief (because grief really, really sucks.) But she decides that a rural area is going to be the place to heal. Also healing? 2 am dance parties. But her neighbor isn't into that. At least the male half isn't. But he ends up as a single father and Tess steps in. Well, "steps" might be a soft word for it. She is sort of barreling her way through life, undirected and decides to take on an orphan as well as teaching all of the teens in an abstinence only town all about prophylactics.
I have to admit, I was hoping for another Natural Born Charmer or Breathing Room. Both start with female characters on a journey (okay, it's a common plot device,) and we get to see them move through the book. And it took me several days to figure out why this book didn't quite hit that button for me and I finally figured out that the amount of resolution nowhere nears the amount of angst. Tess is so bottled up for most of the book, then sort of nuts, but then, poof!, she's all good. In both of the other books I mentioned, we get to see more healing and getting to see that depth of character is part of what makes those books so good. Also missing in this book? Relationship development. At least between Tess and Ian. It all felt so surface and SEP is usually so good at creating the kind of relationship that I sigh over.

Three stars
This book comes out June 9th
ARC kindly provided by HarperCollins Publishers, NetGalley, and Edelweiss
Opinions are my own

In Case You Didn't Know by Samantha Chase

Mason Bishop's mother has been more than a little overbearing in the first two books of this series. In this book, he's finally making his bid for freedom by moving out. What he doesn't expect to find is a woman who fascinates him.
Scarlett Jones knows all about Mason. He's the golden boy, the only son of the reigning family of Magnolia Sound. He was also her lab partner in middle school but their lives diverged quickly. She was the only daughter of a father who didn't know how to deal with her (which we are told A LOT in this fairly short story). Now she... I'm not actually sure. I think her main job is as a social media manager for several places in town but we mostly hear that she helps out at her father's garage and build houses for dogs that need to be adopted. Even though she's resentful of Mason's seemingly perfect life, she is attracted to him.
I wish there had been more about how the two start to build a relationship but there was a lot built into the story.

Three stars
Follows A Girl Like You
Followed by And Then One Day
This book came out June 23rd, 2019
Borrowed as ebook from the library
Opinions are my own

Love Lies by Amanda Lamb

I really think that narrator Chloe Cannon is what made this a four-star read for me. Lamb is a good writer but there are a lot of details and phrases that are repeated that would have become annoying had I been reading the book in print rather than listening to it.It sort of let me skim over the repetitions.
A woman disappears while jogging in North Carolina. The spouse is always the first suspect and in this case, it's no different. Lamb had a peripheral relationship with the victim and (while it's not explicitly said) that seems to be what has her following this case so closely. We get lists of evidence as well as long transcripts about events around her death and the trials afterward.

Four stars
This book came out December 6th, 2011
Borrowed this as an audibook from the library
Opinions are my own

House Party Murder Rap by Sonia Parin

When she first came to England, Evie became known as "That Evangeline Parker." An American heiress, she caught the eye of several men but fell in love at mutual first sight with the Earl of Woodbridge. She had a few wonderful years with him before he died. During her grieving, she went back to America. But two years have passed and she has decided to return to England bringing along a Duesenberg and a chauffeur, Tom Winchester, hired by her grandmother.
One of her first stops is at a house party with her late husband's good friend, the Duke of Hetherington, familiarly known as Bicky. There is an odd incidence as she goes from the village to the ducal manor. Someone takes a shot at her car. When Tom reacts quickly, Evie begins to wonder about him. When someone later takes a potshot at the duke while Evie is standing near him, she learns that Tom has actually been hired as a bodyguard. He ends up posing as an old friend of Evie's and joins the house party.
The mystery isn't particularly exciting and the end is a bit deflated. Discerning timing in the audiobook can be hard; I suspect there are paragraphs that we don't experience which break up some of the story. The charm of the story comes in the character building. Both Evie and Tom are delightful characters and I look forward to reading more of their books.

Three and a half stars
Followed by Murder at the Tea Party
This book came out December 28th, 2018
Borrowed as audiobook from the library
Opinions are my own

The Summer Deal by Jill Shalvis

Brynn, Eli, and Kinsey went to the same summer camp for many years. Eli and Kinsey were tight friends but Brynn was often on her own. In fact, Kinsey was her camp bully. Even though they're now grown-up, the hurt is there. So, when Brynn comes home, already tender from a break-up from a con who took all of her money and her grandmother's necklace, she's not exactly excited to move in with the two. Well, actually, Eli's gotten pretty hot so Brynn's okay with him but Kinsey is the same old mean girl.
But Kinsey's got her own things she's dealing with. Including a pretty heavy illness. She's not exactly in a place where she can give a lot of empathy to others and she is trying to hold herself back so she doesn't hurt anyone later.
This was an interesting story. Like other books in the Wildstone series, the only connection is that they are set in the same town. Also, the romance takes more of a backseat to the other relationships in the book. Maybe not AS good as some of Shalvis's books but regular readers will not be disappointed.

Three and a half stars

Follows Almost Just Friends

Followed by The Forever Girl
This book comes out January 12th
ARC kindly provided by HarperCollins Publishers and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

A Fly for the Prosecution: How Insect Evidence Helps Solve Crimes by M. Lee Goff

I heard about this book from one of the ladies in a local book club. She made it sound very interesting. And it was, up to a point. After a while, the beats of the book get a little monotonous; there's no ebb and flow, just a steady stream of facts. If you are a big fan of scientific books, this is going to be very interesting. If you are having trouble concentrating on books right now, this may not be the book for you because it is very detail-heavy.

Three stars
This book came out September 1st, 2001
Hard copy that I didn't keep
Opinions are my own