REVIEW: It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Murder by Ally Carter
Dear Ally Carter,
Last year’s The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year made my list of best reads of 2025 so I was especially happy to read Carter’s latest. It’s billed as book two in the Kiss, Merry, Kill series but the connection between the two books is very loose so there’s no problem reading this one as a standalone.
May I also take a moment to admire the cover? It is fun and very relevant to the story – there is in fact a giant wooden nutcracker that the protagonists fight over – just before our hero is killed.
Eleanor Ashley (Ella) Chambers – named for the famous mystery author who appeared briefly in book one – lives in Hidden Springs, Colorado. After her father died when Ella was six, Ella’s mother moved them to Hidden Springs to work for William “Trip” Montgomery III. Ella’s mother kept house and Ella became a de facto maid herself. She was raised to understand, via her grandmother and her mother, that life is precarious and pleasing everyone else is the only way to stay safe. Even so, it’s clear early on that Trip had a soft spot for Ella.
Trip’s son, William IV and his wife Cynthia are not nice people. It is mainly the people around Trip who are snobby and mean to Ella, but it’s not like Trip did much to stop it either so there’s that. William IV’s son is Liam (ie William V). Liam is the same age as Ella and they essentially grow up together at Montgomery Manor.
Hidden Springs was founded by four families, the preeminent of which is the Montgomerys. The potential for development is huge but Trip was never interested in making even more money than he already had by inviting tourists into his home. He’s been adamantly set against making Hidden Springs and the mountain into any kind of resort. It’s fair to say that other members of the founding families, including Trip’s own, don’t share this view. So, after Trip’s death, his will is a topic of great interest to the town.
Ella works multiple jobs for minimum wage or less and is barely getting by. She had to drop out of college when her mother became sick with cancer to look after her. Ella’s mother died five years earlier but Ella is still struggling with credit card debt incurred due to medical costs for her mother. She wants out of Hidden Springs but her car isn’t good enough to make it over the mountain pass so she is, quite literally, stuck.
People often said Ella was unbreakable, but that’s just what people say when they don’t want to feel bad about almost breaking you. It wasn’t that Ella couldn’t be broken—it was just that breaking simply wasn’t an option.
Liam and Ella have always had a contentious relationship, albeit that the description of it would change significantly depending on who is telling the story. We romance readers know what that means though.
Liam couldn’t believe it had been a decade. Well, nine years, eleven months, and twenty-seven days. Not that he was counting. He most definitely wasn’t counting. It wasn’t Liam’s fault that he was good with numbers and had an above-average memory. Not to mention the fact that The Incident had left an impression even if, he told himself, the girl did not.
Christmas is a hard time for Ella. It’s when her father died, when her mother died and otherwise, it mostly represents a time of hard work and little recognition. Liam’s memories of Christmases with Ella are fond but, for all his wealth, he was essentially abandoned by his parents, used as a pawn to try and get Trip interested in sharing his wealth. Even though there is a huge disparity in their financial situations, they have that loneliness and uncertainty in common.
Ella finds herself at Montgomery Manor during the reading of Trip’s will and hears, along with other interested parties, that all of Trip’s wealth (apart from $1 to old man Fox) has been left to Liam – William and Cynthia get nothing. This is a shocking development. And then Liam winds up dead.
But not really.
It’s just convenient for Liam to stay dead while he works out who tried to kill him. Sadly for Ella, she’s the prime suspect. Oops.
Liam is cocky, charming, arrogant and vain, and the early sections of the book (to be fair, told mostly in Ella’s POV) do not show him at his best. In hindsight I think this is probably Liam’s way of (either or both) keeping Ella safe or keeping himself safe. Nonetheless he had been telling her since he was 16 how he felt about her – even if she didn’t understand at the time.
“You’re out here, and my parents are in there, and so out here wins. Every time.”
Liam admires Ella. She’s scary smart and scrappy – inventive and competent and clever.
Liam didn’t want to do a murder—at least not with the sheriff in the room. That was the kind of thing that required foresight and planning and running said plans by Ella first because Ella would do it so much better than he could.
Ella was better at everything.
It’s also not just Ella’s brain Liam admires.
I thought I might go to the apartment. Get out of everyone’s hair.”
She wasn’t in his hair—she was in all of him. His hair was the least of it.
Once Liam is dead, Ella has to work to clear her name and the first phase of that is proving Liam is alive. This is more complicated than expected and after a while, they begin working together to find out who the (attempted) murderer is and along the way, solve one or two (or three) other mysteries. Maybe the plot got a little too twisty for me at the end but it was pretty much a romp up until then and I was happy to go along for the ride. I enjoyed the humour and the banter and the broader cast were a lot of fun as well. Special shout out to Sheriff Grady, Violet, Archie and Grandma Sherwood.
By the time the mysteries are all solved, Ella finds herself with someone who will let her rest, who will take care of her instead of being the one doing the caregiving all the time and someone who will stand up for her and cheer her on; someone who gives her choices and options. Liam just knows he’s home.
Grade: A-
Regards,
Kaetrin
I noticed this on Amazon and thought a nasty word when I saw the price. After reading your charming review, well, another nasty word or two crossed my mind. I want authors to write and to profit, I really do, but do these ebook license-to-read prices reflect production and delivery expenses?
@LML: At least for me, it’s $6.98USD at Amazon US but maybe it’s different where you are/from your preferred etailer? Library?
That’s curious, Kaetrin. I just looked and see $12.99 on Amazon in the US.
I’ve just preordered the kindle version in the UK, cost £2.99, so $3.94. Transatlantic price difference are strange.
Wow, Mike, that is a great deal!
Yesterday and today, $12.99 at Amazon US. I regretted for the rest of the day publicly grumbling about the price, because it’s a book, not food or shelter.
12.99 for me as well. Do not get me wrong, if I really REALLY want the book I will get it anyway, but I can wait here so I guess library it is :). Thank you Kaetrin for the review.