This story made me uncomfortable. Apparently, a man persuades an elderly woman to sign over her property to him on her death bed. When the man a few weeks later - why wait so long? - informs the heir of the woman he has the deeds to the property no one asks the obvious question: where is the money you paid for it? No doubt it is legal to talk an elderly woman into signing over her property, but if the woman doesn't get paid a commercial value in exchange, it reeks very much of taking advantage of an old lady.

Now, Fiona only worried about losing the B&B, whereas she could have worried about not having an inheritance at all: no B&B and not a large sum of money the value of the property.

Same for Sheriff Crew Turner (what parent names their kid Crew?). He didn't ask the money question either. Which he should have, because that would have made Fiona's motive for murder much stronger. Because if getting the deeds to her inheritance is motive for murder, then getting the deeds without paying market value for the property definitely is. But good luck to the prosecution to find a jury that convicts the murderer of a man that swindled an old woman on her death bed out of her property.

That said, I'm not much impressed by Crew's police skills overall. Sure, as he tells Fiona, he doesn't have to advertise doing his job, but the little he shows of it doing his job, isn't great advertising anyway. For example, his crime scene is in the garden. He doesn't need to close the B&B and sent all the guests away to process his crime scene. At the very least not before he has taken witness statements from all the guests. One of the B&B-guests might be the murderer. It's much more convenient to keep them all nearby.

I'm on the fence about reading another one in this series. Fiona was OK as a narrator. I like some snark in a narrator. But as a character she was a bit aggravating. Perhaps I want a little more of her running her business in the story, rather than her running away from her business. (Though slightly forgivable here, as she was investigating whether she still had a business.)

An OK read, but a bit dull. The main character, Chris Connery (given name: Christmas Eve) did not seem to have any distinguishing characteristics other than her unusual name.

Also, not much snooping going on. The occasional clue was found in passing, or because the police shared it with Chris and her mother. Not entirely sure why the police shared so much information with them. Eventually, the murderer was found because

Spoiler

he leapt forward and shouted "Here I am."

I liked the background information about forging art. That made this book (and probably its series) stand out against other cozies.

Not much of a mystery.

The prologue starts with portret of Christa. She's painted as a not very likeable person, so it's not really a surprise she is killed.

The next chapter shows Heather at work. She's painted as a much nicer person than Christa. In walks a detective who wants to ask a few questions regarding Christa's death. Heather is sort of a suspect and decides to investigated. Conveniently helped by Christa's brother

Spoiler

who gives her a key to the shop, enabling Heather to look around.

Why the brother would do the things he does is not explained. Did he have a past relationship with Heather? Any reason why he needed her to know he did not kill his sister? As far as the story told me Heather is the former boss of Billy's sister. His actions are convenient for Heather, but make no sense in the story.

Same with Christa's mom airing the family's dirty laundry over the phone with Heather. Same with Detective Sheppard sharing case details with Heather.

The plot was interesting though, but it could have been much better executed.

I did not like it. None of the characters and their interactions seemed realistic.

After losing her job, divorcing, selling her house and most of her stuff (the rest she gave away) Jessie Henderson decides to visit her aunt Bee, without phoning ahead, with the intention to stay a while. Though aunt Bee is pretty much her favourite family member, Jessie hadn't told her yet she got divorced. Not that aunt Bee is sharing she has a suitor.

Okay, divorcee packs up her life and moves back to place she was happy in her youth. Not an uncommon trope in cozies. Not sure why Bee is Jessie's favourite family member, though. She's portrayed as a gossip and the town bully. Even police officers fear her wrath for not being polite enough when they tell her niece not to mind police business.

Jessie meets two women and a dog. She is so infatuated with the dog that Clarice (the owner) says Jessie can come over and walk the dog if she likes. Which Jessie does.

On her first walk with the dog, the dog gets away, but is caught by Mike (the town's mayor). Mike gives her a ride back to Clarice to drop of the dog, but Clarice house is dark and no one answers the door. This I find strange. If someone borrows your dog for a walk, you tell them you are going to be out later. Stranger yet: Jessie does not think it's odd Clarice didn't tell her she would not be able to return the dog.

Mike says he'll take care of the dog, and Jessie gives it to him. Despite it not being her dog and she knowing next to nothing of this guy. She doesn't even bother to ask for his phone number so they can be in touch about the dog.

The next day Jessie goes back to check on Clarice and hears she has been arrested. Jessie frets about that, and what that would mean for all the dogs Clarice keeps. Aunt Bee suggests Jessie speaks to the mayor about that. The mayor refers her to the chief of police. Who in turn let's her speak to Clarice who is being detained at the police station. For some reason Clarice does not yet have a lawyer.

Jessie starts to take care of the dogs, and stumbles upon some evidence Clarice is innocent. The police are not much interested in this evidence: if it is true, why did Clarice not bring this up herself? That's a good point. Clarice does very little to get herself off the list of suspects. For instance, she never mentions where she was the evening of the murder. It can't be that she was arrested already (too soon after the police discovered the body), so why not give an alibi?

Speaking of alibis:

Spoiler

Jessie realises there is a hole in the alibi of the real murderer. The police seem to believe her on this one, but rather than go back to two people that gave the murderer an alibi and question them about possible omissions in their statements, the police use Jessie as bait to entrap the killer. And rather than be angry with chief Daly for setting Jessie up to be killed (even it was her idea), Bee and Mike are angry with Jessie.

So yeah, not realistic, and because things were never explained, also not believable.

When her friend Abner is considered a suspect in the death of a new vendor at Bailey's Farmers Market, Becca doesn't believe he could be a killer and starts her own investigation.

I'm with Becca that Abner is an unlikely suspect. So what if the victim stole his high school girlfriend? High school was nearly fifty years ago for these men. A broken heart in high school may seem like the end of the world at the time, but most of us have gotten over that by the time we hit twenty. I might have believed this motive if the murder happened fifty days after the heart break, not fifty years.

Second, the murder weapon was found on his property. In a greenhouse that has no locks. Anyone can walk in there.

If the Monson police think they can make a case based in these things, perhaps they should visit a farm specialised in animal husbandry. General, those have more straws for them to grab at.

I didn't like Becca much as a character. When she asks people questions she thinks she is entitled to an honest answer. She is entitled to the "that's non of your business" remark, but no one gave her that. At least she's not entirely too stupid to live. She did call the police (conveniently to leave a voicemail message), before she walked into the woods.

The police officer responding to her call, however, seems too stupid to live. He broke through the door of a cabin (after hearing a shotgun) without making sure the people inside the cabin are not armed (and likely to kill him when entering). The unprofessionalism of the police continued from there: his colleague share personal information about officer Brion and at the information desk at the county courthouse / sheriff's office is a woman chewing gum while talking.

Okay book if you want to explore writing according to a structure.

But I don't agree to all of it. For instance the statement: "In mystery writing, you simplify the problem of motive by creating a visible resource base." From the examples, it seems the resource base is something like money or some property that the killer wants or wants to protect. But what about a killer that kills for revenge (and gains nothing, but the knowledge the victim won't be a pest anymore)? Or a killer that kills accidentally? Those situations too can be a puzzler for the sleuth. Or are plots like that to sophisticated for the weekend novelist?

And apparently you must create a catalyst, the character that "makes things happen". As if finding the killer is not enough motivator for the sleuth. I needed more of a definition of what a catalyst is and does. There were many examples, but I still didn't get the point why this one character is a catalyst and some other character that makes things happen (almost) as much, isn't.

The main idea though, getting to know the characters helps develop the plot, is useful. As is the overall message: put bum in seat and get to work.

Silly little read that didn't seem to take itself too seriously. That made obvious problems (such as a timing issue after Willow and Embry search the cafeteria of the highschool) amusing rather than agravating.

Although, by chapter 13 the sleuthing gets beyond silly:

Spoiler

At the rescheduled chili cook-off Willow and Janie search all the work stations in hopes of finding a clue. As if the murderer would bring anything incriminating to the reschedule.

My favorite quote: when Chief Grice wants to be present at the rescheduled chili cook-off at Willow's ranch where the killer will probably be present, Willow replies: 'You can come as my date. Maybe then people won’t think you’re there to find a murderer.' Yes, because a police officer leaves his job at work.

Three women disappointed in their jobs and love (one's husband cheated on her and is stalling on te divorce, another's husband has a gambling problem and used her nestegg to pay of his debts) decide to go into business together and open up a used bookstore-slash-coffeeshop-slash-winebar (whoever said for a successful business you need to focus and not be all over the place?)

They suffer a lot of vandalism to their cars and to their shop and even an angry yelling from a old lady that owns the diner and is afraid of the competition the bookshop/coffeeshop/winebar will cause. This doesn't turn into much of a mystery - as the unsub just steps up to the women one day and treathens them.

Basically, it takes the author 75 pages to build up a story until the middle part, then skips the middle and wraps up the end in under five pages. It's almost as if she had wanted to write an eighty page story and got flustered when she saw she had almost reach her page limit. That, or she had no idea how the write the middle part. Which I can't really believe because the flips and twists in the build up are quite good.

A bit dull at the start, slow-paced, many things said that could have been said with far fewer words.

Things picked up a bit when Candy and Doc went in search of their shovel and were sent from one person to the next.