Book Review: Poison at the PTA by Laura Alden

Knowing this was the final installment in the PTA Mysteries, my heart skipped many beats since I knew the torture would soon be over.

After enduring close to 1500 pages, author Laura Alden could have had a great little series, but failed miserably. The pace was slow, the characters were dull (even secondary character Marina Neff couldn’t save the fictional situations. She was supposed to be the wacky sidekick but oh well) and unbelievable.

As the series comes to a close, Beth‘s friends, family and staff do an intervention. Beth says she’s just a little tired from the holidays but everyone knows best. They suggest a six month intervention, Beth says six weeks.

But, Beth needs to solve yet another murder that happened at yet another PTA function.

With a killer on the loose, Beth has to find ways to investigate without everyone knowing. Not only is she trying to solve the murder, but she’s bogged down with trying to figure out what is going on with Marina.

As Beth gets closer to exposing the truth, Alden should have brought the series to the explosive end that it was heading toward.

Since I didn’t feel invested in the series, I do give Alden a lot of credit for writing these five installments and managing to keep the characters straight.

That indeed is an accomplishment and about the only praise that I can give.

The PTA Mysteries:

Murder at the PTA ‘10

Foul Play at the PTA ‘11

Plotting at the PTA ‘12

Curse of the PTA ‘13

Poison at the PTA ‘14