Publication Date: June 10, 2025
Thirty-year-old Sarah Jones gets caught up solving a murder after unknowingly befriending a dangerous con artist (who’s nothing like what she seems) in this playful, twisty mystery from acclaimed author Kathleen West.
It feels like kismet when Sarah Jones, newly relocated to Minneapolis after abruptly calling off her engagement, gets invited to join a group of women who share her same (very common) name. For years Sarah has received all types of correspondence intended for different Sarah Joneses, but now it seems that this mistake has given her the opportunity for an instant community.
What starts as a low-stakes meet-up called “The Sarah Jones Project” soon turns sinister when another local Sarah Jones is found dead, under suspicious circumstances, at the base of the downtown Minneapolis bridge. After fielding numerous calls from concerned loved ones ruling out their Sarah as the victim, the surviving Sarahs decide to take matters into their own hands.
Aided by the dead woman’s nanny, a newly commissioned (and very handsome and eligible) FBI agent, and a cloistered nun with a complicated past, the motley crew of unlikely friends are determined to get to the bottom of the murder of one of their own.
Kathleen West’s Making Friends Can Be Murder is a cross between a cozy mystery and a police procedural. Multiple crimes and even a murder or two kept me turning the pages from the first page to the last.
When multiple Sarah Jones, who shared the same name, decided to form a club, little did they know that the high school project Sarah called 17 would turn into so much more. They would even ultimately be involved in helping to solve a murder. The story had numerous twists and turns, as well as multiple connections to people and places—some tenuous, but others were stronger.
It was interesting to see all the Sarahs, who ranged in age from 17 to 69, connect. As they worked together, there were clues galore, but also red herrings. There was also a cold case, and Sarah, referred to as “30,” was front and center on the current case and an informant to the FBI, which wasn’t always at a professional level. But her mother had an unlikely connection to the cold case even though she had died many years before when giving birth.
As clues are collected and sifted through, the Sarahs are gathering more details than the police and the FBI. There were a few chuckles along with heartbreaking moments. As the cases are solved and closed, we still have a peek into their lives.
There is some romance involved, too. When the whodunnits are revealed, we get closure, but I would have liked the story to have gone on a little longer. The text messages between the Sarahs were a nice addition.
Making Friends Can Be Murder is spot on as a title for this cozy mystery/police procedural. Filled with clues and multiple crimes to sift through to figure out whodunnit.
Kathleen West is a veteran school teacher who writes fiction in the mornings and on the weekends. She lives in Minneapolis with her A+ human family and three B- dogs. Making Friends Can Be Murder is her fourth novel.
