Fur Love or Money by Sofie Ryan

Fur Love or Money
by Sofie Ryan

ISBN-13: 9780593550243
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Berkley
Released: February 6, 2024

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Sarah Grayson is taking a break from her bustling secondhand shop in small-town Maine to spend time with a friend and her dog. But their purr-fect visit comes to an end when the dog leads them to a storm cellar on a nearby property, where they discover a dead body.

The deceased turns out to be a sticky-fingered financial adviser who swindled millions from investors and who has been presumed dead for the last three years. Unfortunately, suspicion falls on the owner of the property where the body was found—and that owner is a good friend of Charlotte’s Angels’, the senior citizen sleuths who work out of Sarah’s shop. The Angels are determined to clear his good name. But with a tight-lipped widow, a possibly shifty sister, and a slew of unhappy investors in the mix, the list of murder suspects seems endless. Sarah, Elvis, and the Angels have a lot of webs to untangle before they can catch the culprit.


My Review:
Fur Love or Money is a cozy mystery. Unfortunately, the ending was confusing in several ways. We had the mystery of the murder but also of what happened to the stolen money. The main characters went around interviewing potential suspects, mostly people who lost their money and wanted it back. Then whodunit is caught in a lie, and Sarah explained to Rose what she thought happened. Only she gave one explanation, then another, and I'm going, "um, that sounds contradictory." I had to re-read it to realize she'd given events out of order and guessed some things based on no evidence (and these things were never confirmed, either).

Sarah wanted to tell her ideas to her detective friend, but Rose insisted they go back to the murder scene (and not tell anyone). Of course, whodunit happened to show up for a reason not explained (as the area had clearly already been searched for evidence and treasure). Whodunit never confessed to murder, never explained why the victim was killed at that location and before giving up the location of the money. It's implied that the money was found but this was never clearly stated. We're just suddenly told it would be returned to the rightful owners. So much wasn't clearly explained. Not a satisfying ending.

The main characters were nice, engaging people, but the clues were a mess. So Sarah can be sure that soil is an exact match just by looking at it? And, BTW, someone with frozen shoulder can't lift their arm without intense pain. They aren't going to spend money on expensive lawn equipment, they're going to hire someone to take care of their lawn. Quite a lot just didn't seem believable.

This is the 11th book in the series, but you don't need to read the previous books to understand this one. This book didn't spoil any of the previous mysteries. There were no sex scenes. There was only one use of bad language.


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.