Book Spotlight | A Tour to Die For by Michelle Chouinard
Number 2 in the Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco Mystery Series
Listen to it here: LibroFM
In Michelle Chouinard’s A Tour to Die For, Capri Sanzio is back, giving a true crime tour her guests won’t soon forget. After all, a tour guide who specializes in serial killers knows better than most that San Francisco is a city with killer charm.
Capri Sanzio knows that when you give serial killer walking tours for a living, unexpected situations are more common than San Francisco's famous fog. So, when one of her guests claims to see a woman being attacked during a tour, Capri remains unphased. The police search the apartment in question and find no evidence of anything amiss, so they chalk it up to a false report from a true crime fanatic looking to be a part of a case. And Capri thinks they might be right, since lately her tours have been attracting even more obsessives than usual--as it turns out, finding the actual serial killer who committed the "Overkill Bill" murders didn't stop the constant questions about her grandfather's supposed crimes, it only intensified them.
But Capri would never forgive herself if someone is in trouble and she walks away. Plus, something about the whole situation has every one of Capri's investigative journalist instincts going haywire--why would someone lie about seeing an attack? So Capri starts to dig, and when her questions lead to a body, she finds herself at the center of another murder investigation.
How often do you request, purchase or borrow a book, only to realize it's the second in a series? I have to admit it happens to me more frequently than I'd like to admit. That's what happened when I requested A Tour to Die For on Netgalley. I listened to about 10 minutes and thought, "This sounds like it's part of a series. If it is, then maybe I'm missing context". I paused to look up the book and found that, sure enough, it was number two in a series. So I did what any sensible reader would do. I borrowed the first one, The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco, finished it (rather quickly, I might add) and then continued with the sequel. Now that said, I certainly didn't need to. While I may have felt like I would lack context or not catch all the references, A Tour to Die For, like many books in mystery series today, they are connected yet also stand alone. That is, if someone picks up book 2 (or book 3) not realizing it's part of a series, the information contained within that book is enough to encourage them to seek out the others while still allowing them to continue the book without being lost or confused.
I'm glad I decided to go back and read the first book because the overarching plot between the books is interesting, and I'm curious to see how it will progress. Capri's ex-husband doesn't seem like a bad guy, but I'd bet that some parts of his business are a little shady.
What I appreciate about A Tour to Die For and the series as a whole is that if all you know about True Crime is what you pick up from that book, you can still enjoy it without feeling lost. Each time a new true crime reference is introduced, there's a bit of background and context provided to the reader.
Overall, I enjoyed the book. The only thing I didn't love were all of the quirky simile sentences. Some of them made me chuckle, but others just seemed a bit off. I'm looking forward to book 3, but I hope there are fewer of these in that book.
If you're a fan of cozy mystery series (and true crime), you are bound to enjoy the Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco Mystery Series.
