4.5 out of 5 stars
Kindle Edition. 272 pages. Published June 16th 2009 by Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Blurb:
For sixteen years reclusive mystery writer Christopher (Kit) Holmes enjoyed a very successful career, thanks to the popularity of elderly spinster sleuth, Miss Butterwith, and her ingenious cat, Mr. Pinkerton. But sales are down in everything but chick lit, and Christopher’s new editor doesn’t like geriatric gumshoes. It’s a pink, pink world for Mr. Holmes.
At the urging of his agent, Christopher reluctantly agrees to attend a mystery writers’ conference at a remote Northern California winery. But no sooner does he arrive than he discovers the pajama-clad body of a woman in the woods. If nearly two decades of mystery-writing are anything to go by, the woman doesn’t appear to have died a natural death.
With a storm in full force and a washed-out bridge making it impossible for law enforcement to come to the rescue, it’s practically like all those classic murder mysteries in isolated country manors that Christopher has been penning for sixteen years! If only Miss Butterwith was on hand. Or even Mr. Pinkerton…
Likes:
- Hooked me right from the start and kept my attention.
- Snarky and sarcastic main character.
- Cozy mystery with a male lead.
- Great start to a new series.
- Amazing women of color characters.
Dislikes:
- I still had some questions about the killer at the end.
- The big reveal at the end wasn’t so big.
- Didn’t give me all the usual cozy mystery feels.
I’m not entirely sure this book is a cozy mystery. It’s definitely close, but it doesn’t have the exact same feel to it. Maybe that’s because this book is set in a new-to-Kit setting. Or it could be because Kit is a gay man and I’ve never read a cozy mystery with a man as the main character before.
As main characters go, Kit was great. I love snarky, sarcastic characters, as long as they are decent people underneath. I was hooked right from the start, both by the situation and by Kit’s character. It took me a while to warm up to J.X. because he flip-flopped a lot. He clearly had feeling for Kit but at the same time didn’t like him.
It took a while to get the full backstory between the two, but it was worth the wait. I actually picked up this book because I was looking for something with a second chance romance. I wasn’t disappointed. The romance doesn’t take as much of a backseat to solving the murders like in a normal cozy. I’d say Kit’s relationship with J.X. were of equal importance to finding the murderer.
That was definitely a good thing, because the ending was a bit anticlimactic. There wasn’t much surprise. I do wish the killer’s motives had been spelled out a little more. I got the general idea, but I always enjoy when the killer admits to everything and spells out their reasoning behind everything they did.
I’m looking forward to getting the next book in the series. I flew through this book and expect to do the same with the next.
Be sure to check out the reviews for All She Wrote, The Boy With the Painful Tattoo, and In Other Words… Murder.
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