Shadow of a Spout by Amanda Cooper

Shadow of a Spout by Amanda Cooper ISBN-13: 9780425265246 Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime Released: April 7, 2015

Source: Review copy from the publisher.

Book Description, Modified from Back Cover:
Avid teapot collector Rose Freemont takes a break from her Victorian tea house only to find a new mystery brewing elsewhere. Rose is off to the annual convention of the International Teapot Collector’s Society. Her granddaughter Sophie is minding the tea house while she’s away.

Rose is eager for teapot expert Zunia Pettigrew to appraise a prized antique teapot. When Zunia is rude and declares the pot a fake, Rose is really steamed. After Zunia’s found dead beside Rose’s dinged-in teapot, Sophie must rush to her grandmother’s aid and find the real killer.


My Review:
Shadow of a Spout is a cozy mystery. It's the second book in a series. You don't need to read the previous book to understand this one, and this story didn't spoil the whodunit of the previous novel.

This mystery was a clue-based, puzzle mystery. There were plenty of clues, plenty of suspects, and even clues that eliminate suspects from the list. Whodunit seemed the most...motivated to me, but I wasn't sure until the last clues fell into place. Sophie figured it out just before whodunit pulls out a gun (allowing Sophie to save someone else's life--yay!).

I like how Sophie--and Rose--are logical thinkers and go about sifting through the clues and asking questions in a logic way. One problem for cozy mystery writers is to justify the heroine getting involved. Once evidence is uncovered that shows Rose is being set up, Sophie decides to duplicate the police's work so she can deliver the murderer to the police wrapped up in a bow. Though she is generally cooperative with the police and didn't look down on them, I didn't care for her smug attitude in that moment and I hope it doesn't come to dominate these fun stories.

There was no sex. There was a very minor amount of mild bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this fun, clue-filled mystery.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


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