A Story to Kill: 02/08/25

A Story to Kill by Lynn Cahoon and C.S.E. Cooney (Narrator) (2016) is the start of the Cat Latimer mystery series. Cat, a former English professor is home in Colorado to host writers' retreats at her B&B. On her first retreat, best selling author, Tom Cook is a guest, and then he's murdered. It looks as if the murderer is one of her guests.

The B&B setting is a popular one for murder plots. It's a small setting but larger than a locked room. It has a limited number of characters keeping the puzzle manageable.

A writer's retreat brings in the competition. It creates an atmosphere where characters can be jealous or where they want to one-up each other. It often means plagiarism is brought up as a motive, as it is here.

Cat is here in a house she bought with her ex and now dead ex-husband. The B&B has a history with the university. The university has ties to a cold case, a missing woman.

It's all the pieces of a specific type of mystery. There's a cold case that heats up and results in a modern day murder. But what if the information is wrong? What if the murderer is making assumptions?

Honestly I wish the plot had adhered to the tropes more than it had. Mysteries are essentially logic puzzles. Logic puzzles work because they work with expectations and understanding of how things work. They're just more complex versions of seeing a bear in from a window with a southerly view. What color is the bear?

This initial mystery is more red herring than clue. Because it's set up in a way that the reader can't easily piece together there's no option but to have the frustrated murderer reveal themselves. It's a dissatisfying mystery populated by an interesting main character and supporting cast.

The second book is Fatality by Firelight (2017)

Three stars

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