Tuesday, November 12, 2019

The Space Invader (Frannie Shoemaker Campground Mystery #7), by Karen Musser Nortman (author), Michelle Babb (narrator)

Karen Nortman, October 2019

Larry and Frannie Shoemaker, Larry's sister Jane Ann Ferraro and her husband Mickey, are out traveling in their campers again, this time to New Mexico. Having stopped briefly for gas and snacks on the last day before arriving at the campground near Roswell, they acquire a hitchhiker they're unaware of, in the cubby where some of their supplies are stashed. When they arrive, they park and hook up their campers, and, completely exhausted, collapse immediately into their beds, and sleep.

When they awake, their hitchhiker is already gone, and they head out sightseeing. In a happy change of pace from their previous adventures, this time they don't find a body.

Someone else finds a body.

Initially thought to be the body of an escaped convict, it's soon identified as the body of a hiker who had been staying in the same campground. The Ferraros and the Shoemakers had seen him leaving the campground for the day before they did. But he's wearing part of Larry's rainsuit, and was hit with what might have been the missing crossbar from the Shoemakers' grill, both of which were stored in the cubby, and are now missing.

Not finding the body themselves this time isn't going to make things any easier for the friends.

This is, as always, a light, enjoyable cozy mystery, enlivened this time by the escaped convict and a UFO cult somewhat similar to the Heaven's Gate cult founded in the 1970s, which blew up spectacularly in the late 1990s. When Jane Ann and Mickey are kidnapped along with their bright red camper, Larry and Frannie have to keep that from Larry and Jane Ann's mother as long as possible--while she's hoping to talk to Jane Ann to tell her an old school friend is back in their hometown.

It's fun to catch up with the old friends again, and as always they meet some likable and interesting people, as well.

Fun and enjoyable. As always, Michelle Babb is an excellent narrator.

Recommended.

I received a free copy of this audiobook from the narrator, and am reviewing it voluntarily.

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