A STORY TO KILL - Lynn Cahoon
A Cat Latimer Mystery , Book 1
Kensington
ISBN: 978-1-4967-0435-1
September 2016
Cozy Mystery

October in Aspen Hills, Colorado

It's a warm Autumn in Aspen Hills and Catherine (Cat) Latimer is enjoying being back after two years in Los Angeles. Cat grew up in Aspens Hills where she and her late husband were both professors at Covington College, she teaching English, and he in the economics department. Theirs was a love match until her husband began to stray and they divorced. But now she's back after learning her ex's will still had her as his heir. That means their big old blue Victorian house is now all hers to do with as she pleases. And she pleases to write. In order to defray expenses until she can get published, she plans to hold a week's writers' retreat every month by hosting other authors. She promises room and board, interesting discussions—some at the college—and foremost, a quiet place to write, away from the cares of their daily lives. She brought Shauna, her best friend from L.A., as partner in the enterprise. And she hired the local handyman to help renovate the house.

The handyman turns out to be Seth Howard, her former sweetheart! Oh, my!

Cat's first guest writers are a varied group of five, two friendly grey-haired sisters, an unfriendly student from the college, a frosty, unforthcoming man, and the charming Tom Cook, a bestselling author of thrillers. Not long into the retreat, Cat finds Tom dead in his room; it appears he was killed. Cat calls her Uncle Pete who happens to be the town's police chief.

It seems a mystery is afoot, and Cat endeavors to unravel it. But she finds even the house holds secrets.

Though A STORY TO KILL is about a murder, it's also about the characters and their various histories and personalities, and those add humor and an often lighthearted tone to the whole. And will Cat and Seth rekindle the fire that once burned hot between them? Maybe. The murder mystery is solved, but the answer to that last question may have to wait, as this is only the first of this promising new series. (There are seven volumes in Ms. Cahoon's Tourist Trap Mysteries. ) For a fast and entertaining read, I readily recommend A STORY TO KILL.

Jane Bowers