Death by Sudoku

Book 44 of my 2019 Reading Challenge

read on June 28

Death by Sudoku

by Kaye Morgan

Book 1 of the Sudoku Mystery series

Summary (via the book jacket)

published 2007

After a brief stint as a public relations specialist - and a married woman - in Los Angeles, Liza left both Hollywood and hubby behind and returned to her hometown of Maiden's Bay. Inspired by her success as the Oregon Daily's sudoku master, she enters a tournament in Orange County to test her expertise against other puzzlers.

Liza's old friend Derrick Robbins is also a contestant in the tournament. A former television celebrity, Derrick has become a puzzle master and conspiracy theorist. And when he turns up dead after the competition, Liza realizes Derrick was obviously on to something - and now must figure out how it all adds up...

My Opinion

3 stars

This super-fast read got me through a long flight home.  It had some personal character stuff that set up the series well if the reader wanted to continue but the mystery itself stands alone if the reader wanted to stop here.  I'm not against reading more if I come across them but probably won't go out of my way to find them.

I like Sudoku puzzles and the tips on how to solve challenging ones were a nice bonus.  The actual puzzles scattered throughout the book probably would be nice for some people as well but not for me - I bought a used copy so they were already complete but even if they weren't, I'm not sure I could get past my ingrained bias against writing in books to do them (maybe in pencil, haha).