The End of the Road: A Maxie and Stretch Mystery

The story moves quickly and keeps you interested.

In The End of the Road, Sue Henry again writes a cozy mystery featuring Maxie and Stretch. A brand new friend, John Walker, commits suicide in his hotel room---or does he? I don't think it's a reasonable idea to offer someoine Maxie has just met a ride in her car, or to invite a strange woman to spend the night in her home. Nevertheless, the cozy contrast between the cold, sleet, and snow outside, and the warmth found inside, is delightful in this story. Not only do I give this book 5 stars, so does my librarian, who also enjoyed this book.

I loved most of this book. Maxie is the kind of person I would love to have as a neighbor. And being a dog lover, I enjoy the role Stretch always plays in her stories. I liked the day to day telling of Maxie and Stretch and their life and enjoyed the book till the last few pages. The ending was sloppy, in my opinion. It left some things 'untied'. How did the woman stay hidden in the house without THE DOG alerting Maxie? My Yorkies would have sounded the alarm. Maxie wonders how the police will get into her house to rescue her cuz everything is locked up tight. All of a sudden, there they are with no explanation. It would have been nice to have a few more pages to the story to finish it better.

THE END OF THE ROAD is a Maxie and Stretch mystery telling of a PI and her miniature dachshund Stretch, just back from their latest adventure when a murder in their hometown of Homer, Alaska changes their lives. Her search for the killer will lead to danger in this fine mystery for any general lending library.

I see that my rating is much higher than most other reviewers, but perhaps the reason I liked it so much is that I am in Maxie's age group and I enjoy the same sorts of things that she does. In previous Maxie and Stretch books, Maxie has been traveling in other parts of the US, and I enjoyed the fact that she stayed in Alaska this time. The background of Homer, a small Alaskan town, suits this laid-back mystery in which she meets a somewhat mysterious stranger whom she befriends. The plot thickens when the man comes to an untimely end and Maxie uses all of her investigative powers to uncover what really happened to him.

She usually takes her RV and her mini dachshund Stretch to the lower Forty-eight during her get away from Alaska's cold. However, this Maxie McNabb decides to stay home in Homer. All the snowbirds have fled south so when Maxie and Stretch walk on the beach she is surprised to meet someone else there. She invites John Walker to dinner with her and some of her friends and her son. Johne seems evasive about his life before he came to Homer. The next day Maxie is sunned to learn John killed himself and he had no ID on him. When she goes to Anchorage Maxie sees a woman almost everywhere she goes, but the woman who seems to be following her makes no attempt at direct contact. Back home, Maxie sees her door ajar and smells perfume inside. A woman arrives soon afterward insisting she is John's sister Amy, but vanishes before Maxie can get her to talk with the police. Anxious with fear, Maxie tries to stay ahead of the woman because she has a bad vibe about her.. Alaska comes alive in this colorful amateur sleuth mystery starring an intrepid female sexagenarian who has the energy to light up the Arctic during the extended night. Saddened by John's death, Maxie moves on although events (and people) pull her right back into a deadly scenario. The support cast is solid, Stretch a darling and the heroine super, but Alaska is the superstar of Sue Henry's terrific THE END OF THE ROAD. Harriet Klausner