Book Review: Dinked (Serenity Acres: Where Secrets Barely Stay Hidden, #1) by Crystal Quast

Dinked: Serenity Acres: Where Secrets Barely Stay Hidden by Crystal Quast
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Intriguing, complex, and highly entertaining, with a tantalizing underlayer of secrets throughout!

Dinked, the first book in author Crystal Quast’s new Serenity Acres cozy mystery series, is sly and clever and filled to capacity with tantalizing hidden secrets. The community residents seem to have taken Sir Michael Caine’s quote to heart. “Be a duck. Remain calm on the surface and paddle like hell underneath.” There’s so much going on that is invisible, at first, to the naked eye.

When an expansion to Serenity Acre's pickleball courts is presented at the annual general meeting, the community is strongly divided over the project. While some view the move as a way to inject new life into their slowly declining property values, others are opposed to encumbering the community's healthy emergency fund. But there's also a faction that may be loath to disturb the status quo to prevent the discovery of secrets they don't want brought into the light of day.

As the debut novel in the series, the author has the daunting task of crafting a suitable fictional setting for the action and then populating it with the principal characters. Quast weaves a wonderful backdrop and diverse palette of players, with secrets and backstories that offer vast potential to draw upon for this book and the future. The characters are introduced organically as they interact with the main character, Margot Fields, and the resulting story is quite an ensemble effort. Still, it does take some time to develop the community and the myriad relationships; however, the payoff is well worth the reader’s patience and attention to the presented details. The catty repartee and double-edged barbs make for delicious dialogue, strongly reminding me of the women who lived on Wisteria Lane in Desperate Housewives.

With its many twists and turns and sophisticated, clever plot, I recommend DINKED to cozy mystery readers, especially those with an interest in pickleball or enjoy country club-style shenanigans.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advance Review Copy from the author through Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours.

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