Murder with Strings Attached by Mark Ruetlinger

Murder with Strings Attached by Mark Ruetlinger
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Genre: Action/Adventure, Contemporary, Suspense/Mystery/Thriller
Rating: 4 Stars
Review by Dryas

Sometimes even the most carefully conceived burglary can take an unexpected turn. Florence Palmer has her eye on concert violinist Aaron Levy’s priceless violin. Unfortunately, she finds it’s already been stolen. Her surprise doubles when the virtuoso she’d planned to burgle offers to hire her to help him steal it back. But they’re not the only ones looking for the missing violin. When Flo inadvertently becomes the prime suspect in a case of murder, she and Aaron need to clear her name. Will they find the real killer and get the violin back to its rightful owner without anyone else, especially themselves, being killed?

This is a rather humorous cozy mystery involving a cleaning maid turned thief, a violinist who hires her to steal his own violin back from a billionaire who stole it and the maid’s best friend.

This story is told in Florence Palmer’s point of view and I love her character and the narrative. It’s smart, humorous, self-deprecating, and shows her confidence in her own skills and pride in her profession. She didn’t intend to become a burglar, but being a maid wasn’t covering the costs of living and she couldn’t afford college. It probably wasn’t the best idea she had to become a housemaid as she states herself: “Maybe that was a mistake because being exposed to all those beautiful and obscenely expensive tchotchkes, all of which my clients could easily do without wore me down.”

Her latest escapade was to steal an extremely rare and expensive violin from a famous violinist, Aaron Levy, although she was smart enough not to try to sell it, only to ransom it back. The start of this strange adventure begins when Flo is found in Aaron’s room and he happens to walk in on her holding his violin. Except, as she learns, that was a fake and the real one had been stolen several days ago. I had to laugh at Flo’s overdramatized thoughts of going to jail and facing some sort of horrible death. Imagine her surprise that instead of him calling the cops he decided to hire her to regain his lost violin. Then he he tells her that he is going to participate in regaining his violin, and Flo’s reaction is just what you would expect, horror. She could only imagine just how things could go with an amateur thief.

Still, she took him up on the offer, especially since he is offering her a huge payout and is going to cover any expenses. Poor Flo’s idea of a quick re-theft of the violin does not go as planned, even though Aaron knows who stole it.

Flo’s best friend, Sara is another wonderfully created character who knows about Flo’s profession but stays out of it as much as possible. Unfortunately for her, she tends to get dragged into them when Flo needs to get a quick getaway. She has a bubbly personality and enjoys the fact that she will get to go sightseeing, staying at a fancy hotel, and buying souvenirs without having to pay for it.

At first Flo thought it would be a breeze to get the violin from the thug that was hired to steal it, a man named Martin. To her horror and dismay instead of finding a violin, she finds a dead man in Martin’s apartment and is caught by the cops standing over the body. I ended up laughing again at Flo’s renewed frantic thoughts of being in the jail and what would happen next. I love how her mind works; it seems to either go to the best of things or to the worst of things. She’s just lucky that the man she is working for has money in spades who is willing to bail her out.

Aaron is another fun quirky character who also has a sense of humor that matches Flo’s Who else would hire a burglar they find in their room instead of contacting the police about his missing violin? He has a boyish air and even though he knows there are risks, he can’t help but feel like he is on a grand adventure. I can’t blame him as he was a child prodigy and spent his childhood practicing, giving recitals, or traveling. There is also a small romance between Flo and Aaron, but the reader is not sure if this will turn out to become more of a stable relationship or a little fun whenever they can get together.

They make a great trio of friends, and it does make me sad that Aaron confessed that he hadn’t many friends besides Flo and Sara since he was always so busy. There are many sweet moments where they share hugs and kisses on the cheek. This is a relationship that I believe will stand the test of time.

This is a wonderful cozy mystery with fun characters and a fun plot that has so many twists and turns you’ll get dizzy. The ending throws a few interesting facts to light and I love how Flo seems to have a magic charm for luck or something since even as she gets into trouble, she somehow manages to get out of it.

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