Brush Up On Murder
My Rating:
Love is in the air in the quiet Los Angeles County city of Vista Beach, home of computer programmer and decorative-painting enthusiast, Aurora (Rory) Anderson.
As Valentine’s Day approaches, residents are training for the annual Love Run and expressing their undying affection for each other by attaching love locks to the pier railings. But a string of bank robberies is ruining the romantic vibe.
While Rory helps friends prepare for a Valentine’s Day wedding, a body is found and the groom is implicated in the murder. Convinced of his innocence, Rory puts her heart into the investigation. Can she identify the killer before someone else encounters their own brush with death?
Trigger Warnings:
Murder
Characters
- Zeke – Xander’s dad; wealthy
- Xander – Groom, well known chef
- Solange – Bride, part of the painting crew
- Rory (Aurora) – main character, codes people’s websites
- Liz – Rory’s best friend, realtor, also part of the wedding party
- Martin – Rory’s boyfriend, detective
- Arika – Rory’s mom, works at the painting store
- Sekhmet – Rory’s cat
- Nell – acquaintance of Rory, manager of the hotel
- Paris – part of the wedding party, was working the desk for one of the robberies
- Harmony Wells – makeup artist
- Teresa Mut – wedding planner
- Jade McIntyre – bridesmaid, supposedly knows Solange from high school
- Naomi – Xander’s sister
- Veronica – reporter
My Review
The sixth installment in this series was a pleasant and entertaining read for those who enjoy the cozy mystery genre — I might go back and read the first ones to see how the characters got to where they are! I hadn’t read any of the previous books and it didn’t matter – I was able to figure out the characters enough that I don’t feel like I missed anything.
Rory is a website designer that has helped solve cases in her town before. Her mother owns the paint store and she seems to also enjoy painting. Her best friend is a realtor in town and they team up to help solve the murder of a questionable bridesmaid. The character development in the book was enough to hate the characters you should and root for the likable ones.
I feel like there were some side stories that didn’t get resolved in this book — a set up for the next book in the series. The only thing I would have changed in this book was the final reveal feeling a bit rushed and the resolution of various subplots is somewhat unsatisfying. I was hoping for a little more suspense/build up at the end – it seemed a little too quick to wrap up in the final scene thatI felt should have been a tiny bit more dramatic.
Brush Up On Murder was an enjoyable read for fans of the genre who appreciate characters that are real with relationships that are also believable.
Spoilers/Summary
Jade ends up murdered. She wasn’t actually friends with Solange, Solange had hired her from a company to stand in as a bridesmaid to even out the numbers.
It turns out that Jade was previously engaged to Xander. They split up when Xander dropped out of med school to become a chef. She then dated Xander’s dad Zeke.. which broke up his marriage.
Harmony was the bank robber. She needed money to help her kids. When she went into the alley, she saw Jade standing there.
Xander’s sister stabbed Jade and Jade died. Xander was going to meet her and found her dead..
It turned out that Jade died from poison. The police thought it was Candy who poisoned her. Candy was investigating theft at the hotel and was undercover as a waitress there.. The police found liquid oxy and stolen jewelry in her office.
Candy had been a witness to a murder decades earlier that put the wrong person in jail. That person died while in jail before they could get out.
Nell ends up being the murderer. She was the sister of the man who died after being put in jail. She tries to kill both Candy and Rory, but Martin finds them and saves them.