Cowboys and Chaos by Elizabeth Pantley – a Review

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Description:
This is no ordinary book club! When the group chooses a book, they are whisked away from reality to find themselves totally immersed in the story. The characters, the setting, and the murder all come to life. In order to exit the book, they’ll need to solve the mystery and reach The End.

This time, the club chooses a mystery that takes place in a quaint western town – in the old Wild West. That sounds like great fun, until they arrive in the dusty old town in the Arizona desert, among cowboys and saloons. They discover that the outhouse isn’t the worse thing about this trip.

The good news is that Paige, Glo, Zell, Frank, and the other members of the club discover plenty of surprises here, and they have a great time visiting a piece of history. They’ll get to live through many exciting moments as they unravel this cozy mystery story.

Review:

Cowboys and Chaos by Elizabeth Pantley is the 3^rd book in her fun Magical Mystery Book Club series.  Refresher: Paige and her Aunt Glo, inherited the grandmother’s country inn, which comes with a magical library.  The magical library consists of 8 members, who choose a book, and they are transported into the story, with cozy mysteries that they have to solve.

In Cowboys and Chaos, Paige, Glo, Frank (cat who talks), and the rest of the book club members are transported to the Old Wild West, Bandana, AZ.  Upon arrival, they are shocked to meet with Gee Gee, their beloved great grandmother, who they thought was dead, but instead was living the rest of her life in the old west, where she had remained when in her last story.  There is also a new addition to the book club, Atticus, who joins the club.

When checking out the town, they end up in the saloon, which has two levels; first level is bar, food, and card playing; the second floor is a brothel. They overhear others discussing a girl named Molly, who has been missing; which leads them to follow-up on her disappearance, as this was the mystery they needed to solve.    Early on, to their shock, they meet Molly, who is dead and a ghost, only the book club members can see and talk to Molly. Molly was a fun, lovable character, who was determined to help the book club members find the person who killed her.  

Cowboys and Chaos was another fun story, with all of the members in the middle of this mystery. There were many suspects, with different clues, as they continued to get more information and also work with the sheriff, still convincing the town that they were friends of Gee Gee.  It was a lot of fun, to become part of the past, with cowboys, cute dresses and bonnets, not to mention the dangerous situations, with gunslingers, and villains.   There were a number of surprises throughout, which was so much fun and a blast to read.  I really like Paige, Glo and other members, but of course I loved Frank, the talking cat.  Cowboys and Chaos was a wonderful lighthearted mystery, which was very well written by Elizabeth Pantley.  I look forward to the next book.

Reviewed by Barb

Copy supplied for review