Death Of A Songbird

By Christine Goff

In desperate need of respite, Lark Drummond accompanies her friend, Rachel Stanhope, on a birding expedition. But their relaxing afternoon takes a gruesome turn when Lark witnesses her business partner’s malevolent murder through her spotting scope. With the help of their birdwatching club, she sets out to solve the tortuously complex mystery. However, as more clues surface - and disappear - it soon becomes apparent that this case is much more menacing and dangerous than they'd originally bargained for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HighLine Editions
• Release date: Jul 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781941286319

Christine Goff

Chris Goff is the award-winning author of the bestselling "Birdwatcher's Mystery" series. She was named ‘Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' 2002 Writer of the Year’ and two of her novels were also finalists for the prestigious ‘Willa Literary Award for Best Original Paperback Fiction’. Her latest book, ‘Death Shoots A Birdie’, was also a Finalist for the ‘Colorado Authors League Best Genre Fiction’ Award. Having grown up in a small mountain town in Colorado, she spent a lot of time outdoors—camping, fishing, hiking, playing tennis and skiing, with wildlife always around. Her father was a true outdoorsman and together they explored the wilderness of Colorado, sailed in Maine and walked extensively from the sandy California beaches to the windswept cliffs of Cornwall, England. It was her mother, however, who was the major influence on Chris commencing a writing career. She encouraged her from an early age, and later her job as a Vice President of the Gannett Broadcasting Company led to Chris growing up surrounded by some of the best media talent in the country. At college Chris studied journalism, determined to become an investigative reporter. Deciding this was not for her, however, she tried her hand at a variety of jobs—PR, engineering, ice cream store manager—until finally returning to writing. She began by writing non-fiction for several local newspapers in Summit County, Colorado, as well as articles for regional and national publication. She later edited rock and ice-climbing guides for the ‘Chockstone Press’, worked in graphic production for ‘Living the Good News’, and taught writing workshops for the Colorado Free University, the University of Colorado, and at writer's conferences internationally. A long-standing member of multiple writing organizations, she has served on several local, regional and national boards, including that of the ‘Mystery Writers of America’.

Reviews for Death Of A Songbird

[familiar_diversions · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Lark Drummond is a partner in the business that supplies coffee to her luxury hotel, as well as a friend of the owner, Esther, so it's a surprise when she learns that Esther has cancelled all of the hotel's current and future coffee orders. The timing is particularly terrible - the hotel has completely run out of coffee and is currently hosting a birding convention - so Lark heads over to Esther's cafe to figure out what's going on.She doesn't get a chance to talk to Esther much, but she does witness an argument between Esther and Teresa, the 18-year-old daughter of one of the Mexican coffee growers Esther works with. She decides to save her questions for a better time, and unfortunately never gets a chance to ask them at all. While out bird watching, Lark witnesses someone stab Esther to death.This is an unusual cozy mystery series in that all or most of the books star different characters. The characters do seem to have intertwining relationships and interactions, so I felt like I missed out on a little by not having read the first book, but overall it wasn't too difficult a series to jump into.That said, it didn't really work for me. I learned a bit about coffee and why, if you care about birds and the environment, it's so important for coffee to not only be organic but also shade-grown. The book also worked in information about illegal immigration and bird watching.Unfortunately, this was the most boring cozy mystery I'd read in a while. I didn't particularly care about any of the characters, and the mystery itself wasn't terribly interesting. Lark was a bit of an idiot, telling the book's top murder suspects the location of a ledger that almost certainly contained an important clue, and as annoying as her one staff member, Stephen Velof, was, he seemed to have a better handle on the hotel, its atmosphere, and the rules it was bound by than Lark. Lark seemed more dedicated to bird watching than to her hotel.I can't really speak to the accuracy of the bird watching aspects. I didn't think they were particularly exciting, but I was at least semi-interested in the red-face warbler sightings: Colorado wasn't considered to be part of its range, so I wondered if the sightings would somehow be incorporated into the mystery. I maybe shouldn't have expected quite that much.All in all, I'm glad to be done with this and don't plan on reading any other books in this series.Additional Comments:This book had an awful lot of typos - a character's name all in lowercase, "later" instead of "latter," etc. I wasn't impressed with the editing.Extras:A page about Wood Warblers and a page about the Migratory Bird Conservancy.(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)