Deceased and Desist (A Tallie Graver Mystery #3) by Misty Simon @KensingtonBooks #bookreview #mystery

Title: Deceased and Desist

Author: Misty Simon

Publisher: Kensington

Publication Date: November 27, 2018

Page Count: 272

My rating: 4 stars

About the book:

Window of opportunity . . .
 
Most housecleaners don’t do windows, but Tallie Graver loves leaving a pane of glass streak-free and sparkling. After a dirty divorce from a filthy-rich jerk, she’s started her own cleaning business to make ends meet. On her latest job, prepping a renovated bed and breakfast for a grand re-opening, she’s standing outside on a ladder, wiping off a grimy pane, when she spies a man on a bed through the glass. But the B&B isn’t open for business yet—and the man’s not sleeping. Her family owns the Graver Funeral Home, so Tallie knows a corpse when she sees one.

The victim is a shady building inspector with a reputation for handing out passing grades for a greased palm. With the local police resistant, Tallie launches her own investigation, before she gets a rep as a town crank. But it’s going to take more than a squirt bottle and a squeegee to clean up this mess. With the help of her gal pal Gina, Tallie searches for a killer’s motive. But she’d better be careful, or it’ll be curtains for this window cleaner . . .

Deceased and Desist by Misty Simon is the third book of the cozy A Tallie Graver Mystery series. Each book in the series features it’s own mystery to be solved so they can be read and understood as a standalone. Of course though there are details to the story that carries over book to book so it’s always best to enjoy the series from the beginning.

Tallie Graver had married her rich ex-husband as a way out of working in her family’s business, the Graver Funeral Home. However, now that Tallie is divorced she has had to return to the family business but also took on a side job of cleaning homes to help gain her independence.

As Tallie is up on a ladder cleaning windows at a soon to be opening bed and breakfast she sees a man lying in bed in one of the rooms. Tallie hopes she doesn’t disturb the man until she notices his eyes are open and there’s something not quite right with his neck. Being in the funeral business Tallie knows a dead body when she sees one but after calling the police Tallie finds the new chief isn’t onboard with calling this a murder so Tallie decides to begin investigating herself.

Being the third book of this cozy mystery series one might guess that if I’m still reading them that this is one that I do enjoy which is true. Deceased and Desist was another solid mystery to add to the series with plenty of secrets and suspects for Tallie to uncover. I’ve liked Tallie from the beginning but it’s good to see her learning from her mistakes and growing into her sleuthing role with each read. Looking forward to seeing what happens next in the series.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online: 

Goodreads  /   Amazon

About the author:

Misty Simon is the author of Cremains of the Day and Grounds for Remorse in the Tallie Graver Mystery series. She loves a good story and decided one day that she would try her hand at it. Eventually she got it right. There’s nothing better in the world than making someone laugh, and she hopes everyone at least snickers in the right places when reading her books. She lives with her husband, daughter and three insane dogs in Central Pennsylvania where she is hard at work on her next novel or three. She loves to hear from readers so drop her a line at misty@mistysimon.com