A Twist in the Tail by Leighann Dobbs

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery, Cozy Mystery
Content: Clean



Josie Waters has to admit she may have acted a bit hastily when she agreed to purchase the Oyster Cove Guesthouse – a charmingly gabled Victorian mansion on the breathtaking Maine coast – from elderly family friend Millie Sullivan. Anyway, how hard can running a guesthouse be?

The truth is, Oyster Cove Guesthouse is a mouldering money pit with a cohort of regular guests who are as mischievous as a litter of kittens. And Josie might have made a mistake in promising to adopt Oyster Cove’s two resident cats Nero and Marlowe. Josie has never had a cat before… let alone two feisty felines who think they own the place.

Ok, it’s not going well. At least it can’t get any worse, Josie thinks. Until her first guest ends up dead.

This was a charming read. While it's nothing amazing, it did keep me turning the pages. I've only read a few cozy mysteries, a genre that I have a hard time taking seriously, but I think that's probably the point. This series in particular features a couple of feline detectives who usually find the clues before the humans. I thought it was fun, especially the chapters from the point of view of the cats. Though not really believable, it was entertaining and that's pretty much the nature of cozy mysteries. It was amusing to see how the cats would get the human's attention so that they could lead them to the clues they found. I was happy that it wasn't blatantly obvious who the killer was. There were a lot of red herrings thrown in there to keep me guessing for a while.

One small issue I had with the book was that it seemed to keep confusing the building inspector with a health inspector. They are two very different things and one person doesn't normally do both of those jobs. But maybe in a small town like this they've got someone qualified in both fields, who knows. Other than that, this was a quick, fun read that I recommend if you like cozy mysteries. If you aren't sure what a cozy mystery is, think Hallmark Channel mysteries, and that pretty much sums it up. I'll probably pick up the next book in this series the next time I want something light to read.