Title:	Murdered under the Covered Bridge: A Bucket List Mystery
	Author:	Elizabeth Perona
	Published:	2016, Midnight Ink
	No. of Pages:	312
	Cover Price:	$14.99 Paperback, $7.99 Kindle

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When friends Francine McNamara, Charlotte Reinhardt, and Joy McQueen, members of the Summer Ridge Bridge Club, meet for a photo shoot to cross one item off Charlotte’s bucket list (Be a Sexy Calendar Girl), things go awry as they hear gunshots and see Francine’s cousin, William, running from them and ending up unconscious and near the water where he’ll drown if not moved. Joy is a correspondent on senior living for the local ABC affiliate and an occasional reporter for Good Morning America; the girls are promoting the local Parke County Covered Bridge Festival and besides the fact that the photo shoot is part of Charlotte’s bucket list, the photos are of the girls in period costumes in a horse-drawn carriage to go with an historic story about the bridge. While William isn’t dead, he is unconscious in the hospital and the girls team up to find his would-be killer.

Although they have different circumstances, the female characters are reminiscent of the women on the old television series The Golden Girls, and the novel is written tongue-in-cheek. There is some light suspense throughout the novel, and several times Francine, Charlotte, and Joy are in danger for their lives. And as they uncover clues and add to the suspect list, they wonder if the killer was actually trying to kill William or was he trying to kill them.

While the novel is quite humorous, it seems disjointed at times and hard to follow. I found that I wasn’t particularly enamored with the characters, and felt it was too much effort keeping the characters straight and following the storyline. The premise of writing a whole series based on three women’s bucket lists is innovative, and will make for plenty of subjects for new novels, however, for me, it just doesn’t work. The characters are a bit flat, and while the author did capture small-town life, this series isn’t one that I’ll rush to pick up. There are some surprises and twists and turns, however, so Murder under the Covered Bridge may appeal to some who enjoy small town stories.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this novel.

This book may be purchased at Amazon:
Murder Under the Covered Bridge (A Bucket List Mystery)