Getaway With Murder (Mountain Lodge Mystery #1) by Diane Kelly #bookreview #mystery
Title: Getaway With Murder
Author: Diane Kelly
Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Publication Date: October 26, 2021
Page Count: 304
My rating: 4 stars
About the book:
Getaway With Murder is the first in a cozy series from Diane Kelly set in a lodge in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where secrets hide behind every hill.
As if hitting the half-century mark wasn’t enough, Misty Murphy celebrated her landmark birthday by amicably ending her marriage and investing her settlement in a dilapidated mountain lodge at the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains. With the old inn teetering on both a bluff and bankruptcy, she must have lost her ever-loving mind.
Luckily, handyman Rocky Crowder has a knack for rehabbing virtual ruins and for doing it on a dime, and to Misty’s delight, the lodge is fully booked on opening night, every room filled with flexible folks who’d slipped into spandex and ascended the peak for a yoga retreat with plans to namastay for a full week. Misty and her guests are feeling zen―at least until the yoga instructor is found dead.
With a killer on the loose and the lodge’s reputation hanging in the balance, Misty must put her detective-skills to the test. Only one thing is as clear as a sunny mountain morning―she must solve the crime before the lodge ends up, once again, on the brink.
Getaway With Murder by Diane Kelly is the first book in the new cozy Mountain Lodge Mystery series. Each book of this series will contain it’s own fully solved mystery so they can be enjoyed as a standalone novel if choosing to do so but of course the character development will carry over for those who choose to continue the series.
Just as Misty Murphy is turning fifty she finds herself completely changing her life. Now that Misty’s children have left home she and her husband have decided to end their marriage finding themselves to be complete opposites. One thing that always made Misty the happiest was traveling to the Blue Ridge Mountains so she decided to move there permanently and bought an old inn she was familiar with from her visits.
As Misty arrives at her new lodge she finds it a bit more run down than she remembered and knows her first task will be hiring someone for repairs. In the middle of estimates that don’t suite her requests Misty meets handyman Rocky Crowder and hires him to help. As the lodge opens Misty and Rocky find themselves catering to their new guests but when one guest is found dead under the new deck they then turn to discovering who among them could be a murderer.
I actually really enjoyed this opener to the Mountain Lodge Mystery series and getting to know this set of new characters. The Mountain Lodge made a wonderful remote setting that had all the small town charm I love in cozy mysteries. This opener had a great locked door mystery that had me on my toes wanting to solve it right along with Misty and her staff. After this first book I will definitely be excited to return to the series in the future and will keep an eye out for book two.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
Find this book online:
Goodreads / Amazon*
About the author:
Glad to hear this is a good start to the series. I have this one to read and of course, the setting and the cover called to me.
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Same here, of course. I did like it though so I would guess that you will too Carla.😃
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This sounds like a great new series. I love that cover. My neighbor has a carved bear in front of his house that looks similar to the one on the cover!
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It definitely is Wendy! The cover reminded me slightly of Great Wolf Lodge we’ve been to a few times. They have giant animals out front and inside the lodge too but hey, I’d certainly put one in front of my house if I came across it.🤣
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