A Literal Mess by J.C. Kenney

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Allie Cobb returns to her home town of Rushing Creek, Indiana following the death of her father. She’s there to attend the funeral and wind up his literary agency. After that, she’s going back to New York.
At least, that’s the plan.

Being the one who went away to pursue a career means that there’s a rift between her and her siblings – some of it is in her head, some of it isn’t. Coming back to where you grew up is complicated. Then, when her best friend’s father is found dead, things get even more tangled.

This is a classic cosy mystery, where the story is more about the characters and their community than the murder itself. This is the start of a series and Rushing Creek has plenty of interesting characters to populate the stories. I liked Allie and her family (including the cat). There’s an interesting potential love interest (oh yeah!). The mystery was interesting, with a few red herrings and some very interesting suspects. The only quibble was that Allie did that thing where she voluntarily went to confront the murderer by herself, which was silly. Take backup. Always take backup! But it all worked out in the end, so that’s okay.

This was a lovely, entertaining read. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series already. I got an ARC of this via Netgalley.


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