Murder with a View by Diane Kelly (A House Flipper Mystery)

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Carpenter Whitney Whitaker and her cousin, Buck, are “flippers” who buy rundown properties and rehabilitate them to sell at a profit.  It’s not easy money.  There’s a lot of back-breaking work involved, but they both have the skills to pull it off.  This time around, though, they may have bitten off more than they can chew by acquiring the old Music City Motor Court.  Instead of keeping it as a motel, they plan to turn the old motel units into condos.  It’s a good location, great view—what could go wrong?

First, they discover a squatter on the property, but he seems a good enough sort.  The other trespasser is less obliging, mostly because he’s dead.  What’s worse, he was a rising country star so the press and fans are about to descend.  Whitney and Buck are about to give the old adage about “all publicity is good publicity” a first class work out.

This is the third in the series, and I have enjoyed them all. The first one had the “first in series” slow spots as are many “first in series” books as the author tries to introduce characters and set the stage.  The next two have been good quick reads.  I like Whitney who has a good head on her shoulders, and she loves her cat Sawdust—always a way to my heart.  I like learning a bit about the process of rehabbing buildings, especially when Whitney starts describing her decorating visions.  This time she’s going with mid-century modern, which I particularly enjoyed.  Whitney’s significant other is a detective (always handy in a cozy) but they have a good steady, relationship:  she doesn’t try to pump him for information and reports anything she uncovers.  He trusts her not to do anything stupid, so he doesn’t lecture. While Whitney has a good support system, she’s also had her share of difficult people but Kelly does give these characters some depth; or at least allows them not to be thoroughly bad apples and gives some validity to their points of view.  The plots are interesting and there are useful clues.  Kelly usually avoids the “info dumps” at the end, thank goodness. (Info dumps are what I call it when a sleuth spends the whole book running down dead ends and then about two chapters from the end she discovers a treasure trove of information that solves the case almost immediately. I find them annoying.)

And Sawdust is adorable.

Titles in the series:

Dead as a Doorknocker

Dead in the Doorway

Murder with a View

Batten Down the Belfry (2022)