REVIEW: The Trouble With Murder

The Trouble With Murder
Author: Kathy Krevat

Colbie Summers is trying to build her organic cat food business, raise a 12-year old boy and help her ill father. Her life in beautiful Sunnyside, CA is busy and chaotic. She has a chance to increase distribution of her Meowlio Batali products to a health food store chain that owns seven locations in the San Diego area, and she's networking like mad to get as much local exposure as possible. She's even joined the Sunnyside Power Moms, a group for female home business owners in the area. The SPMs are having a trade show in a gated community and Colbie is helping with setup. She fields complaints about booth space, competing products and other catty in-fighting among the SPM members, but the show goes smoothly otherwise. During the show, her father becomes ill at home so Colbie has to leave early. Her friend Twila offers to pack up her products and drop them off at her house after the show ends. Later, Colbie and her father return to the product show site, only to find that Twila has been murdered. Not just killed...she has a Meowlio Batali brand knife sticking out of her chest. Suddenly Colbie's life is a whole lot more complicated.... she's a suspect in a murder investigation!!

The Trouble With Murder is the first book in the new Gourmet Cat Mystery series It's a quick, fun read and gives a great introduction to the characters and their lives in Sunnyside. I like Colbie as a main character. She is trying to improve her life by building her business but still takes time out to help her father recover and to make sure her son gets what he needs to thrive. She also supports her son's love of theater. I also had to smile at the relationship between her and her father. They grouse at each other occasionally, but are always there to support and love each other, even if it's in secret. The mystery moved along at a good pace and had some nice surprises. I pretty much had the murder figured out before the end....but the ending was action-packed and exciting, so I didn't mind that the murderer's identity wasn't a surprise. All in all, a very enjoyable, fun cozy mystery! And the cover is totally cute! :)

I will definitely be reading more of this series! Luckily, I don't have too long to wait! The second book, The Trouble With Truth, will be out in August 2018.

Kathy Krevat also writes the Chocolate Covered Mystery series (published by Berkley) under the name Kathy Aarons. To find out more about the author and her books, check out her website: http://www.kathyaarons.com/

**I voluntarily read an advanced readers copy of this book from Kensington via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**