I was enjoying the story for the first third, but it did take a long time to get to the actual murder. I started to think that perhaps this was going to be a mystery about who caused all the bad things to happen to Whitney’s house.

Soon after, murder happens and corpse is found. Whitney is made to identify the body. Well, made … she’s manipulated into identifying the body. “Otherwise we’ll have to call a family member. You don’t want one of his loved ones to have to go through that, do you?” the lead detective says.

I think Whitney should have protested a little harder that she doesn’t want to do it. On the one hand, Whitney is portrayed as a touch cookie, doing evictions on her own without backup (in a state where gun ownership is not an oddity) and yet, she’s pretty spineless when it comes to standing up for herself in other situations.

That evening Colette, Whitney’s friend, takes her out for drinks and after Whitney tells her about everything that has happened to her in the past week, the two of them compile a list of possible suspects.

And though I can agree to most of the people on the list, I can’t agree with Presley, the dead man’s assistant, at least not for the reason Colette and Whitney think of. So, sure he probably was an awful boss that undervalued and underpaid her and didn’t support her ambition to have a career in his company. But that’s no reason to kill the guy. That’s reason to quit and find opportunities elsewhere.

Perhaps I’m just biased because that’s what I do when my ambitions don’t line up with the ambitions my employer has for me. Also, I like to think that murder is a last resort and that even in cozies people kill because they see no other options to solve a problem. People with bad bosses generally have other options. Particularly in larger towns.

One name not on Whitney’s suspect list, is Whitney herself. The police find her a person of interest, though. Whitney decides she must find the killer. If only to soothe the nerves of potential buyers of her house that there is still a killer out there.

Her and her cousin Buck’s approach is that of offence is the best defence. They visit potential suspects at their homes and ask them flat out if they have killed the victim. Surprisingly, none take the opportunity to confess.

There were some further eye-rolling moments, but the overall story was nice enough. I didn’t care for the chapters that were close third person of the cat. I'm a little undecided between two and three starts, but I'm probably not adverse to reading another book in the series, so three stars makes more sense.

There is one thing I truly detest as a cozy trope and that is a killer that use poison, a knife or whatever is convenient to kill, but when confronting the sleuth

Spoiler

pulls a gun. And this killer went beyond the trope by pulling a gun, dropping it when he flees, then pulling another gun an hour later when the police catch up with him.