Hammers and Homicide

 

Hammers and Homicide is the first novel in a smalltown cozy shopfront cozy mystery series by Paula Charles. Released 16th Jan. 2024 by Crooked Lane Books, it's 288 pages and currently available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback format due out in 1st quarter 2025 from the same publisher. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links.

This is a warm and quirky smalltown shopfront cozy with a 60something female amateur sleuth and her daughter (who has moved back to town to keep an eye on her widowed mom). It's set in the Pacific Northwest and the author does a good job with setting and descriptive prose. As with nearly all smalltown cozies, it's full of eccentric characters and light-hearted dialogue. 

The setup and murder are over-the-top, but not unusually so for a cozy mystery. The late unlamented victim is a thoroughly unlikable cad with the sunny disposition of a moray eel. As with the genre, the violence occurs off-page, and the language is clean throughout. There are some fairly major oddities/plot holes which will presumably be tied up in a future installment, but readers should be aware the entire solution is not forthcoming in this book. 

Additionally, there's a significant paranormal aspect with full dialogue between the MC and her 3-years-departed husband. Her deceased cat also shows up. Neither of these plot elements are fully explored and it's never clear if it really is a paranormal element or wishful thinking on the part of the MC.

The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 7 hours, 26 minutes and is read by Petrea Burchard. She has a raspy alto voice with a midwestern burr, and although her voice in some characters was a bit rough (abrasive?) it doesn't overpower the read. She does a fair job of delineating the different characters (although some of them have an odd western/Texas twang which was a little out of place), they're easy to keep distinct from one another. Sound and production quality were high throughout the read.

Three and a half stars (given the genre). It would make a good bus/commute read or a buddy read. Quite promising, especially given that it's a debut novel from a new author. 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.