A Geek Girl’s Guide to Murder

A Geek Girl’s Guide to Murder (2015) Julie Anne Lindsey

Mia Connors is the IT person for the Horseshoe Falls community. So she’s taken aback when it’s discovered that someone has been sending messages to their residents that are supposedly from her system, and causing problems. To make things worse, their regular security guy is out on leave, and his temporary replacement things there’s something wrong with Mia.

Then there’s her sister, Bree.

Tell me one thing, Mia. Why don’t you ever tell me things? What’s the point in having a twin if we live two separate lives?”

I really like that Mia is self-sufficient and also aware of her limitations.

I’m just trying to figure out what’s happening, and body language and eye contact, and all those things most people get a bead on, kind of elude me, so if you could just state your intentions, that would be amazing.

She’s also stubborn and amusing.

Neighborhood Watch signs and fluorescent yellow plastic men holding orange “Children at Play” flags freaked me out. I imagined being cuffed over the hood of my car for doing twenty-seven in a twenty-five while angry mothers beat me for endangering their children. Who was the Neighborhood Watch anyway? Residents? Rental cops? Could they carry guns? Taser me? Organized civilians scared the bejesus out of me. Those sorts of groups were always formed by power-hungry commoners with angry hearts, except Friends of the Library. I stood behind those ladies.

The mystery is fine. Someone is killed. Mia is seen as a potential suspect and wants to prove her innocence. I’m not quite sure how I feel about the solution. I guessed who the culprit was, but the why was… odd.

But my interest in the story was less the mystery than discovering more about Mia, who is a bit of a contradiction in her self-assuredness and watching her weight and the other bits of being a modern woman.

Are you upset because your brother is outside and knows you stayed here last night?”

He snarled. “Aren’t you?”

I made a show of checking my watch. “Nope. It says here this isn’t 1955 anymore, and I’m a grown-ass woman.”

Although there were romantic overtones between Mia and Jake, was just as pleased that served mostly just to confuse Mia and was not a major part of the story.

One quibble. Two of the main male characters were Nate and Jake and in my mind I kept confusing them. That’s probably an issue with the way my brain processes things, but the names felt super similar to me so I kept getting them confused.

A fun and enjoyable story.

Publisher: Carina Press
Rating: 7.5/10

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