As cozy mysteries go, it has genuinely likeable, funny characters and is written very well. It is leaps and bounds ahead of its competition and better than the predecessor. *However.*

However. My frustration lies in another direction. The repetitive dialogue. The implausibility of (the characters being allowed to do amateur investigations) (the scenario) (the solution). The repetitive dialogue. Genuinely, the book could be half the length but instead it tells you what happens as the action happens, what happens when one of the leads finds out, when that character tells the other characters, and when they are recapping at the end. The repetitive dialogue.

And why does every character have the same type of... humor/tone/manner of speaking?

I'm started to suspect that the author initially wanted Dunn and Skins to be the main characters but as he wrote Diamonds, he felt more comfortable with Ellie, who appears to be written as a combination of young Lady Hardcastle with Flo's practicality.