Murder at Dawn: A Traditional Mystery

This is book 4 in the Wintergreen series. I have read a couple of them and I enjoy the main protagonist Bill quite a bit. This could be read as a standalone, but the characters do develop more and more from book to book. These are clean mystery books so no graphic violence, sex, or strong language (if that is important to you). There has been another murder on the mountain and at the surface it looks like an open and shut case. You have a woman murdered after getting into a fight with her girlfriend with her girlfriend’s knife buried into her back. But the accused murdered is a friend of Bill’s and he just doesn’t buy that she did it. Luckily the police respect his experience and let him help dig into the case so he can try to prove his friend’s innocence.

I read the first in this series and really enjoyed it. Somehow I missed the next two (though I’ll remedy that tomorrow) and happenstance brought Murder at Dawn to my attention. I’m glad it did!
Kelly has created a likable character in Bill O’Shea, a retired cop just trying to enjoy life in the mountains. When a friend is accused of murder, he joins forces with local law enforcement as he works to prove her innocence. I’ll admit that a small piece of the plot line goes just a hair over the top, but that didn’t lessen my enjoyment. Besides, Bill has a dog now, and he’s a great dog! I’m hoping that either book 2 or 3 have more on how they found each other.
The characters ring true - they’re not perfect, they struggle with families and jobs and romance and bills: the mundane as well as the dramatic. And people get mad at each other and say stupid things, and every now and then someone says exactly the right thing. And the views are spectacular!
Thanks to NetGalley for proving this reading copy.

This was another winner in the fourth book in the wintergreen mystery series, it had a great overall feel to the mystery genre. I was engaged with solving what was going on in the plot and it had everything that I wanted in this series. The characters worked well with the story and I wanted to solve what was going on with them. It had the writing style that I was hoping for from Patrick Kelly and the other three books in the series.

Summer in Wintergreen sounds idyllic. Beautiful mountain scenes and amazing temperatures become marred when murder takes place. Bill O'Shea has set in to his new home. Having helped with the local police many times, Bill is called to a murder scene. Someone didn't like Lily Wolf. When clues start to stack against Bill's friend and cafe owner, Kim, he must race against time and a overzealous commonwealth attorney to find another suspect. Who else could have murdered Lily? With little known information about the victim, Bill and the Wintergreen police struggle to solve this murder.
I love this series. The author draws on his knowledge of the area and the people to make the scenes picturesque and the characters relatable. Add in a mischievous dog and a absent ground hog and you will be pulled to keep turning the pages. Looking forward to Bill O'Shea's next adventure. I received an advanced copy. My review is my own thoughts and feelings.

cooperation, cozy-crime, due-diligence, friendship, local-law-enforcement, murder-investigation, mystery, pet-dog, pickleball, procedural, read, relationships, retired-cop, riveting, small-business, small-town, Virginia*****

These books are a kind of cozy procedural because there is no gratuitous gore, erotica, or violence.
Bill is a retired homicide detective who has connections with the local law, he gets in on the due diligence as a consultant. The victim has an obscured past and the chief suspect is a local businesswoman and a friend. The plot moves along at a relentless pace with engaging characters, beautiful imagery of places in the mountains, and a real whodunit.
This is the fourth I've read in series and I loved each one.
I requested and received a free temporary EARC from BooksGoSocial via NetGalley. Thank you!
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