Book 12, 2025

[chez_jae]

Batten Down the Belfry by Diane Kelly

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


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I've just completed the book Batten Down the Belfry by Diane Kelly. It's the fourth "House-Flipper" mystery, with main character Whitney Whitaker.

Whitney and Buck, her cousin and business partner, have just purchased an old church and parsonage for back taxes. Whitney envisions turning the church into an entertainment venue and repurposing the parsonage house as a restaurant. They don't even have a chance to begin work before the man who owns the surrounding acreage arrives to accuse them of trespassing on his property. He says he filed an adverse possession claim and that the five acres belong to him. Whitney and Buck turn the matter over to their title company and begin work, all the while hoping that Nolan Sibley's claim doesn't hold up. In the meantime, the man who delivered the replacement stained glass windows is found dead in the belfry. Local police determine he was murdered, casting another shadow over the property and the proceedings. Whitney can't resist getting involved in the investigation as she seeks to clear her name and get justice for the victim.

First things first: as someone who's spent the bulk of my employment years working real estate in one form or another,
- Sibley said he claimed adverse possession after using the property for seven years. I Googled it, and in TN that checks out.
- My next question was, why would a church have to pay property taxes? They should be exempt! I looked that one up, too, and it turns out that (in TN at least) the property must be actively used for religious purposes, which this one was not. Checked out again.
- The property in question was contained in two separate counties. Sibley only filed his claim in one of them. As someone who worked for a title company once upon a time, I can assure you that any competent title company would have searched both counties, and any competent title searcher would have found that adverse possession claim. I used to prep docs for recording, and I also can't imagine that any Recorder would have accepted a document without all the pertinent information on it, which would have enabled a searcher to find it via the name of the owner(s) and the legal description of the property at the very least.
- If everything was filed correctly and the title company missed it, they would have been on the hook for the money Whitney and Buck paid for the property. That is why you buy title insurance.
- Finally, even if Sibley had a legitimate claim, via adverse possession, he should have been paying the taxes on the property. I'd venture to say that in the case of his claim being valid, he still could have lost it for the back taxes. So there's that.
I'm not saying the author didn't do her research, but she should have spoken to a friendly neighborhood title company to get some perspective.

Real estate rant aside, the story was fast-paced and entertaining. Whitney was depicted working and relaxing in equal measure to investigating. I like that in a cozy mystery. In prior books in the series, I found her to be impetuous to the point of stupidity, and this one was no departure. I am also dismayed that this is their fourth flip (fourth book, fourth flip) and each of their projects has involved someone being murdered on site. Egad! I'd quit the business after the second incident, I think. I can only hope that future books in the series have some poor sod getting murdered at the lumberyard or the thrift mall. Eesh. Finally, since I'm in a ranty mood:

- If Whitney and Collin, her significant other, were talking over the phone, how does she know "his mouth quirked in a grin"? (Story is in her first-person point of view) Upon reading that line, I actually flipped back a couple pages to make sure that, yes, they were speaking on the phone.
- Sibley ended up dead. Frankly, I wanted to murder him myself, he was that much of an arrogant asshole. He'd been struck in the face hard enough to kill him, whereupon the police inspected all of Whitney's and Buck's tools, yadda yadda yadda. Since he was found dead in the horse pasture, I wondered why no one thought it was possible one of the horses kicked him. Apparently, these people don't know anything about livestock, because guess who was right?

Favorite line: What is family for if not to tease relentlessly?

The book was entertaining, filled with twists and turns and things that did not seem at all related at first, and it kept my attention. I'd like to give it 3.5 stars. Since I can't, I'll round up to 4.