This gal reviewed the whole series!

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Book Review: Toni Day Mystery Series by Jane Bennett Munro

by Joanne Troppello

I recently entered a book giveaway and won six books in the Toni Day mystery series written by Jane Bennett Munro. I hadn’t had the time to read in a while and couldn’t even remember the title of the last book I read.

However, when I found out that I won and received six books in the mail, I was ecstatic. I had new books to read by an author that I’d never read before.

I love a good mystery. My favorite mystery series on TV was Castle and any of the old Agatha Christie books that were made into movies starring the well-known characters, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot.

From the moment I started reading Ms. Munro’s book, Murder Under the Microscope, I was hooked on the character of Toni Day. She is an interesting character with flaws, and a desire to solve any puzzles that come her way—especially murders.

She has more lives than a cat and has survived harrowing situations where I was on the edge of my seat, rooting for this self-proclaimed mystery solver to come out alive and save the day.

After reading these six books, I am sad to say that I will miss Toni Day, her husband Hal, her mum Fiona, stepfather Nigel, and all the other great characters who’ve been with her and helped her solve murder mysteries.

I am new to the Toni Day series, but I hope that Ms. Munro writes another book soon. I can’t wait to see what other misadventure Toni gets herself into. I highly recommend this series to those who love a good mystery!

NOTE TO OUR READERS: This book contains some profanity, so it may not be suited to our more sensitive readers. However, that did not overtake the books in any way. Also, this book is very detailed. This is good, but sometimes the medical / pathology terms may be confusing. Yet, Ms. Munro weaves them seamlessly into the story.

About the Author, Ms. Munro

I’m a pathologist in a rural hospital in Twin Falls, Idaho, trained in Southern California. I worked my way through medical school as a medical technologist. I came to Twin Falls right out of residency, and was in a solo practice for 24 years before my hospital was purchased by the other one; now I have three partners. I now work part-time at St. Luke’s Magic Valley in Twin Falls. I’m 67, divorced, and live in Twin Falls with my best friend, Rhonda, and our cat, Henrietta.

Unlike most pathologists in murder mysteries, my protagonist, Toni Day, MD, is not a forensic pathologist, and neither am I. Like me, she is a hospital based general pathologist who has forensic autopsies thrust upon her. Instead of the usual morgue scene, Toni’s work involves all the other things pathologists do that nobody knows about; surgicals, cytology, the clinical laboratory; all this in addition to solving the odd heinous crime.

Reviewers have suggested that I develop a platform upon which to provide information for those who have lab work done, or must have something biopsied or removed at surgery, and the interrelationship between pathologists, surgeons, and oncologists (cancer doctors) which are so frightening and mysterious to the average patient. I’ve set up a second blog for that: Big Juicy Colon. The readers of my books will at least get an idea of what the average pathologist does all day besides autopsies.

We’re not all Quincy.

Some of us are Toni Day.

Connect with Jane Bennett Munro at her website or on Twitter. You can find Jane’s books online on Amazon:

About the Reviewer

Joanne Troppello is a published author of 3 inspirational fiction novels and the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Mustard Seed Sentinel. She has experience as a freelance writer in topics such as marketing, retail marketing, health and wellness, internet and media, travel and lifestyle, website content, recommendations for apps, and content for blogs.

Visit her Amazon Author Page for more information regarding her books. Connect on Twitter.

Link: https://www.mustardseedsentinel.com/post/book-review-toni-day-mystery-series-by-jane-bennett-munro

Reading this reminded me that I need to update my bio. I’m now 74 and retired, and Henrietta has been replaced by Elvira.

Toni Day Mystery #7 is in the works. I hope to get it published sometime in 2020.

Toni Took A Cruise and I Took A Dive

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Bula!

In 2006, Rhonda and I went scuba diving in Fiji. It was the second time for her and the third time for me. I was freshly divorced, and Rhonda and I had been living together for two years.

Rhonda, John, and I are PADI-certified advanced divers. Rhonda had gotten her certification fairly recently, but I had over 120 dives under my belt and John had more than that. John and I had dived in Fiji, Truk, Palau, Saipan, Rota, and Kona, Hawaii.  Our trips to Fiji, Truk, Palau, and Kona were on liveaboards, which means you live, eat, and sleep on the boat. They keep your dive gear all set up at the back of the boat, with your tanks filled and ready to go for each dive, and usually you do two morning dives and two afternoon dives, and a night dive with rest intervals in-between in which to decompress.

John and I loved the live-aboard life, and we took Rhonda with us on live-aboard trips to Fiji and Kona, our favorite locations. Unfortunately, Rhonda gets seasick just watching a hammock swing in the wind, so she spent most of those trips either puking or lying flat in her bunk. The only times she wasn’t sick was when she was actually diving. There’s no turbulence at sixty feet down; but when she came up to fifteen feet to do her three-minute safety stop, she was puking again. Nothing seemed to help.

I get seasick too, but I can take a pill and I’m fine, and after three days I have my sea legs and don’t need the pill anymore. She is fine with the pill for cars and planes, but she absolutely cannot do boats.

What made this trip different was that we stayed at the resort and went out on the dive boat from there. Also, we used scopolamine patches instead of pills. Rhonda started out from home with a patch, went through the entire trip with patches, and didn’t get sick once. She did take a day off from diving in the middle of the week, which was fortuitous because that day the sea was so rough that we were being thrown around and had to anchor ourselves to something immovable to get into our gear. I think that day would have done Rhonda in if she’d been out there with me.

Another thing that was different is that John wasn’t with us. We met really congenial people on our dive trips, but John was usually unhappy with me because I didn’t use up my air as fast as he did, so I could stay down longer and go deeper than he could, which didn’t exactly make me the ideal dive buddy for him. I was into underwater photography, and I would go chasing after something to get a picture and leave him behind. That tension tended to put people off. One of the people from the dive shop told John that he needed to find a different dive buddy, because, as he put it, “Jane’s a fish. You’re not.”

Being at the resort allowed us to avail ourselves of spa services, such as massages and facials. Also, Fiji is beautiful, and Fijians are delightful. The dive masters on the boat tried to teach us some phrases in Fijian, which was fun, but of course, we forgot them as soon as we got home. Fijians make fans out of palm leaves, and they are absolutely the best fans for those of us who suffer from hot flashes. One of the resort employees took us into town, and we were able to find Fiji fans for all our postmenopausal female friends back home and still have some left over.

Unfortunately, that was the last dive trip. Rhonda and I have become quite the couch potatoes. The arthritis in my hands makes it impossible to pull a wet suit on, even if I hadn’t outgrown it. Our dive stuff is still out there in the garage, but I don’t think we’ll ever use it again.

Anybody out there need some used dive gear?