Description
When Clare, Lise, and Kelly arrive at The Scarry Inn just before a major storm, they’re thrilled to learn they’ll be staying in a room known as The Coffin, which is adorned with coffin beds and other macabre decorations.
Little do they know that one of them will end up in a coffin for real – because a tornado isn’t the only thing threatening the inn’s grand opening. A killer is determined to make sure the inn doesn’t open at all. And that person will stop at nothing to achieve that end.
Mariel –
The Coffin: The Scarry Inn, Book 2 by Shirley McCann
Narrated by Joey Eugene
I received a copy from the author and I am voluntarily leaving a review.
Six months after the unfortunate deaths occurred at the Scarry Inn, Clyde along with his sister Madge and his brother, Dick, choose to reopen the Inn. Dick is the very unwilling partner in this threesome who would like nothing better than to shut the whole place down after the death of his wife, Thelma who is even buried on the property. He feels it is in bad taste, an exploitation of the tragedy that occurred and will attract a morbid curiosity. Clyde on the other hand is determined to make a go of things.
The reopening is only 6 months after the deaths, with a murder mystery weekend of all things and the Inn is fully booked. Complete with coffin beds and skeleton themed shower curtains they really pull out all the stops to create a “ scary “ environment for the guests who consist of a couple of women and a husband, a newspaper reporter and a group of teen girls. When a storm hits, the owners and the guests think it is an added extra giving an air of excitement to the weekend but events get out of control and they get more than they bargained for.
This is the second book in The Scarry Inn series and I enjoyed this one more than the first. Maybe it is due to already having completed the first story having an idea about the theme or a feeling for the owners etc, either way the author creates a thrill combining a murder mystery with acutal murders, the perfect whodunnit. I also think the narrator is more expressive in this book, conjuring a spooky mood at the right moments. The setting is well explained and I found myself wondering why anyone would reopen an Inn after such tragedy but as the incidents in the first book were beyond the control of the owners, I also understand the need to fulfil poor Thelma’s dream.