{"id":5297,"date":"2026-05-28T01:00:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T01:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=5297"},"modified":"2026-05-27T18:26:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T18:26:03","slug":"little-red-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=5297","title":{"rendered":"Little Red Death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Book of the Week May 28, 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Lyla&#8217;s best friend, Allison, disappeared more than 20 years ago, likely inspiring Lyla to become a Detective Inspector. While she\u2019s solved other crimes, this case lingers on\u2014the only clue left behind, a poisoned apple, hinting at the tale of Snow White. Now another woman is gone, and Lyla and her constable cannot ignore the Cinderella theme seemingly in place. And then there is another death, with a Hansel and Gretel twist, earning the case the name The Grimm Ripper Murders. The fairy-tale motifs create a pleasantly eerie mood, and the gruesome staging of the murders linger. <strong>Benedict\u2019s fusion of classic tales with a modern setting works especially well, setting this book apart from run-of-the-mill serial-killer thrillers.<\/strong> The story within a story, with some mind bending elements, requires sharp attention to the clues the author scatters throughout. Readers will relish working out the solution to the detective\u2019s dilemma she works to stop the Wolf from striking again.\u2014<em>Dodie Ownes<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Book of the Week May 28, 2026 Lyla&#8217;s best friend, Allison, disappeared more than 20 years ago, likely inspiring Lyla to become a Detective Inspector. While she\u2019s solved other crimes,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":5296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[163,52,50,51],"class_list":["post-5297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-book-of-the-week","tag-psychological","tag-suspense","tag-thrillers"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Red-1-400x400.png","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Red-1.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Dodie Ownes","author_link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?author=15"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}