Book 89, 2019

[chez_jae]

Purrfect Murder by Louise Lynn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I finished reading Purrfect Murder by Louise Lynn last night. It's the first in the author's "Hazel Hart" cozy mystery series, with main character Hazel Hart and her cat, Anthony Ray.

After a contentious divorce, Hazel has moved back home to the small, tourist town of Cedar Valley and opened her own photography studio, named Wild @ Hart Photography. When a client is murdered in her studio, the new sheriff in town, Sheriff Cross, has Hazel on his short list of suspects. He also closes her studio as a crime scene. In order to clear her name and keep her fledgling business afloat, Hazel begins to do some subtle sleuthing on her own, aided by Anthony Ray. Her mother offers to perform a seance or consult the Ouija board, but Hazel isn't that desperate yet. She begins to learn that the victim had made more than a few enemies around town, and that his first wife had died under mysterious circumstances. Will Sheriff Cross take Hazel's information into consideration, or will he dismiss her theories and ruin her chances in Cedar Valley?

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. Hazel was a fun character, I liked her wacky mother, and her sister and BFF were lovely, too. Sheriff Cross rubbed Hazel (and me!) the wrong way, but I reckon it's too much to hope that he WON'T end up being her love interest later in the series. Anthony Ray may have been my favorite character.

As far as negatives are concerned, there were times I felt that I was NOT reading the first book in a series, but rather the second or third. There was an entire scene with Hazel and her sister Esther, in which I didn't learn until later that Esther WAS her sister. Also, the author made several references to the crooked former sheriff, and I just couldn't help but feel like I was missing something.

Favorite lines:
♦ "He insulted my hat. You know how I feel about things like that."
♦ "Instead of an invisible plane you have a cat. Which is kind of cooler."
♦ "We all make mistakes. It's how you go about fixing them that matters."

I would have given this a five (very good book!), but the feeling of missing some pieces knocks the score down to four.