We return to the Color Me Read bookstore in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Florrie Fox is the store manager and is a talented young artist who has published some advanced coloring books. She is in a relationship with Sgt. Eric Jonquille, whom she met in a previous investigation. And, of course, Florrie likes to solve any mysteries that come her way.

It's October. Halloween night draws ever nearer. Spooky decorations are hanging up or are sitting on every surface within sight. And spooky stuff is happening, too. Florrie's boss, Professor John Maxwell, receives a package containing an actual human skull. It may or may not have brought some nasty mojo along with it. The skull shows up in different parts of the store at different times, moving seemingly on its own. The psychic author that Florrie invited for a book signing arrived at the bookstore with something more: a premonition of a specific death in the neighborhood. Eventually she is proven to be correct. And then more people are attacked, within Florrie's circle.

Georgetown sure does host a lot of suspicious activity and outward crimes at this time of year. Can Florrie figure out what is going on and who is responsible? It's almost a challenge to keep track of all of the victims.

We hate for mysteries to be formulaic. Still, the typical pattern is for one victim to be offered up early on in the story. Then another minor victim appears in the second half, leading the investigators to pin both crimes on a likely perpetrator. Or instead, they point to a small group of possible perpetrators, from whom the proper person is picked out. Adding more victims to the scene over time complicates the whole mess. Instead of following and separating just a few plot threads, the reader is tasked with unraveling a growing pile of knotted strands. What I'm trying to say without metaphor is: This particular story is more complex than it needs to be.

The personalities of the main characters make up for the details of this plot. Florrie is our first-person narrator and the center of attention. We learn more about the old families in this neighborhood, as well as their sordid interactions and histories. Wouldn't you know that these details would be important in understanding the motivations for the attacks? Most of these folks seem decent enough, and we don't want to see any of them get hurt.

As is standard for this series, a few recipes are included in the back of the book. I still think it would be nice and more appropriate for us to get coloring pages instead, since Florrie is a coloring book artist. The paperback cover has an outlined (and uncredited) design that can be colored. But this is only if you own the copy of the book in your hand. It's not a convenient arrangement.

I have read the first four installments of the Pen & Ink Mystery series. I consider this third one, Murder Outside the Lines, to be the weakest of the four. Still, fans of mystery novels may want to keep on going with the series, just because it is available. I can assure them that the resolution of the fourth book is worth trudging through the story challenges of the third.