Book 21, 2026

[chez_jae]

Four-Alarm Homicide by Diane Kelly

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


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‘Twas in the wee hours this morning that I finished reading Four-Alarm Homicide by Diane Kelly. It’s the 6th book in her “House-Flipper” series of cozy mysteries, starring carpenter Whitney Whitaker.

Whitney and Buck, her cousin and business partner, purchase a rundown firehouse in the Germantown area of Nashville. They’re excited about the possibilities and eager to get to work. Not long after, a woman who owns one half of a townhouse around the corner asks them to look at the structure. Joanna’s half is in good condition, but the other side has fallen into disrepair. The seven siblings who inherited it from their parents have not taken care of their half, causing Joanna to worry about the structural integrity of her portion. Knowing it’s in a good neighborhood, Whitney and Buck stretch their finances thin and manage to get all the heirs to quit claim ownership to them. Trouble begins not long after. Several people in the neighborhood begin vying to buy the townhouse before work even starts, and the Bottiglieri siblings start making noise about not getting paid enough. Things really come to a head when Joanna reels into the firehouse one day and collapses. She later dies. At first it seems like a tragedy, but Whitney begins to wonder. Joanna exhibited symptoms of mercury poisoning, but when Whitney points that out, she becomes a suspect in the murder. On top of all that, she’s trying to finalize plans for her upcoming wedding to Detective Collin Flynn. If she doesn’t want to get married behind bars, Whitney must step up to unmask a killer.

The story was likable enough, but certain things stuck in my craw:

- I’ve worked in real estate a long time. I have no idea why Whitney and Buck drove all over town to get all 7 Bottieglieris to sign quit claim deeds. They work with a real estate attorney; why not have him/her contact the heirs and deal with that end of it? They ended up offering two of the seven a bit extra just to get them to agree to sign. Wasn’t there a single Executor or Administrator? What about an affidavit of heirship? A title search? Just...wow.
- Suddenly, these seven asshats, who seem to not get along at all, converge on Whitney en masse to bitch about one sibling getting $500 more. You actually spoke to one another? Coordinated your verbal attack? Worse, Buck and Whitney agreed to pay the rest of them an extra $500. WHY?! They’d already signed the deeds. Ugh.
- How many women in this story are pregnant?! Don’t drink the water in Nashville, my friends.
- I didn’t like how the idea of mercury poisoning just fell into Whitney’s lap. The serendipity was absurd.
- You know what else fell into Whitney’s lap? The solution to the “mystery”.
- While on the subject of solving the crime, why was Whitney running around trying to solve it in the first place? Authors, please make sure your amateur sleuths have a bona fide reason to sleuth.
All that aside, I did enjoy the story. Characters were compelling, and Whitney spent plenty of time actually working.

Favorite lines:
♦ “Two Cousins Transformations?” // Buck snorted. “That makes it sound like we turn into werewolves on a full moon.”
♦ “I hope they threw the book at him.” // “Me too. Breaking and entering. Property damage. Failing to put i before e except after c.”
♦ “There isn’t a cat owner alive who doesn’t have a million photos of their cat on their phone.”
♦ “I’ve got those cake samples to live for.”

I wish I could award 3 ½ stars. I’ll be kind and bump it up to four.