A great book by a fantastic author. The writing is excellent and the mystery keeps you turning the pages. Characters are well developed. Highly recommend.

This is book 3 in the Cat Latimer Mystery series. It works well a standalone; although, what could be more enjoyable for someone who loves reading cozy mysteries than one with a writer’s retreat? If you enjoy this kind of story as much as I do, start with the first book.

The author does a nice job of setting the stage for the book and giving little details about the characters that helped me get to know them better. One of the new writers, who signed up for this retreat, seem to have a different agenda then just having time away from his life to work on his book. Moreover, the unsolved mystery of who killed Cat’s ex-husband is part of the plot again, along with the mysterious death of her partner, Shauna’s, boyfriend. By the end of the book, things are neatly wrapped up.

The author, Lynn Cahoon, has written a lot of cozy mystery books that are very popular, and this series is a nice addition.

Cat Latimer has her January writers' retreat people coming. This is her fourth retreat, but only one has gone off without a hitch. This time, the partners are back in the middle of a murder investigation. Cat's friend and business partner, Shauna, has recently gotten engaged and is spending a lot of time at Kevin's ranch. She heads over for dinner, taking a pot of stew for dinner. After returning to the house, she does not trust Cat to get breakfast ready, she is woken in the middle of the night by Cat's Uncle Pete. Kevin is dead, he was poisoned and the poison was in the stew. Not only is Shauna devastated, but she is also a suspect, especially since she recently bought rat poison at the local hardware store. Cat is now investigation Michael's death (her ex-husband) and Kevin's. Will she be able to find the real murderer before something happens to Shauna? Will she be able to find out what happened to Michael without putting herself in danger?

I really enjoyed Shirley, a retired police detective who is on the retreat so she can write a police procedural. She was so funny. You could tell she really liked Uncle Pete, but she tells everyone it is a professional relationship. There is a lot of teasing going on there. She also helps Cat with her investigation of Michael's death and they do some sleuthing together. I hope she sticks around in the next few books as a love interest for Uncle Pete. The other members of the retreat didn't play much of a role in this book, except for the College Student who was there in the college spot. I really enjoy the relationship Cat, Shauna and Seth have in these books. They are partners and best friends, almost like siblings, although Seth really wants to rekindle the high school romance he had with Cat. I was glad to see Michael's murder solved, but I think there is still a bit more for Cat to find out. It is fun to visit Cat and her gang in Colorado and I look forward to my next visit.

A writer's retreat in a fabulous mansion in Aspen Hills, Colorado. A week to concentrate on writing with a small group of like-minded writers. Plenty of solitude, plenty of emotional support from fellow artists, and plenty of tasty treats home-baked by a fabulous chef. What more could you want? 

Author Cat Latimer and her business partner Shauna Clodagh have set up a monthly writer's retreat at Cat's house for five writers a month in an attempt to supplement her book royalties with some extra income. But their distraction is difficult to overcome when Shauna's fiance is found poisoned. 

Although Shauna was seen with the rat poison that ended up in her Irish Stew, Cat knows that her friend would never kill anyone and finds herself juggling an amateur investigation with her writer's retreat and her own writing. And if that wasn't enough for her to take on, she's also still looking into the mysterious death of her ex-husband, despite being warned off by both Uncle Pete and a shadowy mob member who seems able to enter her house whenever he wants. And since Pete is the local sheriff, you'd think she'd listen. 

You'd think. 

Of Murder and Men is the third in the Cat Latimer series, and it's yet another beautifully written cozy mystery by Lynn Cahoon. With interesting characters, a plot that drives the story ever forward, and a nose for crime-solving, Of Murder and Men is a fun and fantastic mystery with a strong setting and a new twist to having a writer out looking for a murderer. But watch out for the descriptions of the food--they'll make you hungry for muffins, fresh bread, and pizza! 



Galleys for Of Murder and Men were provided by Kensington Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.

Just as Cat Latimer's newest writer's retreat session is about to start Cat's partner Shauna finds that her fiancé is missing and is later found dead. Cat has to keep the retreat on an even keel help her friend through the trauma, and at the same time find out what happened.

The setting of a writer's retreat is so much fun and brings great fresh characters each time.

Another month, and another session of writers are descending on Cat Latimer's writer's retreat in Aspen Hills, Colorado. Cat's right hand and partner Shauna is enveloped in a new relationship, causing moments of stress for Cat about the new session. After Shauna's new boyfriend is killed, she is an obvious suspect. The guests this time aren't the focus of the investigation, but it does intrigue an ex-cop turned writer from Alaska. She also serves as a friendly interest for Cat's Uncle Pete, and with both their investigative minds at work, the mystery is solved in a collaborative fashion. I am a fan of how this series has been progressing, both with the characters development and the eventual resolution of the death of Cat's ex-husband Michael.

I love Lynn Cahoon and so how I missed that she had another series that spun off from her Tourist Trap Mystery series is beyond me, but I'm delighted to find this!

While this is part of a series it worked well as a stand alone, with enough detail to bring me up to speed in such a way that I was rushing to Amazon to find the other books in this series.

Like her other books, this was an easy (but late night) read that sucked me in - the mystery, the characters, and the clever plot made for a wonderful escape! She kept me guessing with the "whodunnit" and she didn't disappoint!

This is book three in the Cat Latimer Mystery Series by Lynn Cahoon. I do recommend the entire series and this book can be read as a stand alone mystery .
Cat is back trying to run her writers retreat after her business partner has exited to run off with a new man in her life. Soon the boyfriend is found murdered and her partner is suspect number one. Cat steps in to do what she does best , investigate and find out what happened.
I love this series for its great characters, enjoyable location feature and the exciting sleuth. The author weaves a great mystery and always surprises me in the end. I highly recommend the entire series. Thank you for the ARC which did not influence my review.

This is becoming one of my favorite series. I enjoy the setting of the writing retreat as the location for the mysteries. The characters are well-written and seem quite real. I like the way relationships are developing as the series matures. And I do wish that i could try some of Shauna's desserts!

The 'back' mystery of her husband is just as compelling as the 'current' mystery. There are some nice twists and turns to both that kept me guessing until the end of the book.

I don't usually like to start reading a series in the middle but this author does an excellent job of filling in the back story. Cat and Shauna are running a writers' retreat while investigating murders old and new. I liked the characters and found most of them entertaining and believable. I really enjoyed the references to how writers "write". Being a reader not a writer, I never considered the methodology of writing. I would love to see some of Shauna's recipes in future books. All in all this was a fun, interesting read with some interesting twists in the plot.

I really enjoy this series that features Cat and her business partner and friend, Shauna and their writer's retreat business. In this book there are two murders that need solving and one might just take Cat's business partner and friend away from her. Good story that held my interest throughout. Highly recommend!

Of Murder and Men is the 3rd book in the Cat Latimer Mystery series and it is definitely the best yet! The author has written not one but two well constructed mysteries. First the current murder of Shauna's fiance, then the reader finds out what really happened to Cat's husband who died under (what Cat believes to be) suspicious circumstances. The twists and turns keep the reader engaged and turning the pages as fast as possible to find out "whodunnit". I am eagerly awaiting the next book in this series!

Of Murder and Men is the third book in the Cat Latimer mysteries and may just be the best one yet. Actually I was enjoying this newest installment up until the end. It was interesting, mysterious and there was some great new information regarding Cat's ex-husband. I could see the mystery being solved anytime soon. Which was actually when my enthusiasm for this booked crashed and burned.

After two books of suspense and this third book finally shredding some new light on the on-going mystery, the author decided to just throw in a less than mediocre conclusion to the whole mystery. Now if this was the last in the series, forgive me, I am happy the author tied up everything. However if there is more...why? You just ruined the whole point of the series. It was all such an anti-climax that I would have returned the book if it hadn't of been a review copy.

Then there is the murder mystery this installment was focused on. It was good but the ending also came up short and was over so quickly. Just an easy answer for everything. I felt very cheated after all the great writing up until that point.

While I have a few problems with this book I really hope this wasn't the last installment. Because to be quite honest this is a nice series with a lovely concept that works. I enjoyed all the books and despite the author not quite being able to offer a satisfying ending (also seen in her Tourist trap Mystery series) the story, characters and premise are very interesting.

Another thing the author needs to work on is her lead characters romantic relationships. As in her other series and this one she tiptoes around the romance and doesn't give it enough progress or attention. Seth just pops up in the story when needed and stands out. Also sleeping in another room? Please...get them together already.

I do like the series and am quite conflicted about it. I look forward to more but on the other side I wonder if I should bother. I still hold out hope that the author will evolve as time goes by and one day I will be able to say she finally hit all the nails.

Lynn Cahoon's Of Murder and Men is the third book in the Cat Latimer Mystery series. Cat finds herself pulling more than her weight at the writers' retreat when her business partner, Shauna, falls madly in love. The final straw is when Shauna fails to show up to prepare breakfast. When it turns out that Shauna's boyfriend has been murdered, Cat is pulled into yet another mystery. She juggles this new one while continuing to work on solving her ex-husband's murder. While this book can stand on its own, reader would benefit from having read the previous two books. I enjoy this series for the characters and setting. I especially liked the crossover with a character from the author's other series, Tourist Trap Mystery series.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. I own the first two, but I haven't had a chance to read them. This is the first in the series that I've been able to read. It was a great storyline and kept me guessing until the end.

I enjoyed the characters quite a bit. Cat is a lot like me and I'm enjoying getting to know her and Shauna and Seth. It was also nice to see some tie-ins to Ms. Cahoon's other series, the Tourist Trap mysteries.

The setting sounds lovely. I've been to Colorado once and it's definitely a state I'd like to visit again!

This was a light, fun read and I recommend it. I didn't feel at all lost even tho' I was starting with book #3 but I will probably also go back and re-read the first two. Pick it up and enjoy!

Another writer's retreat, another murder mystery. This one really hits close to home, with Shauna being the prime suspect in the murder of her fiance. On top of that, Cat is still digging into the mystery surrounding her ex-husband Michael's death.

As usual, the author blends the main characters, recurring supporting characters and new visitors to create a compelling story. There is plenty of suspense and action, mixed in with humor and romance. We get realistic wrap-ups to both of the mysteries. Hopefully knowing what happened to Michael will allow Cat to move on with her life in the future.

Highly recommend this to all fans of cozy mysteries.

When Cat decided to host a monthly writer’s retreat at the old Victorian house she inherited from her ex-husband, Michael, she didn’t expect to be involved in murder—not once, but twice. Her first two retreats were overshadowed by murders, and Cat is hoping trouble doesn’t come in threes. It’s bad enough that her best friend and employee/partner, Shauna, is absent when the first retreat guest unexpected arrives a day early. Cat doesn’t need another murder to add to her worries.

Alas, Cat’s hopes for a trouble-free, productive retreat are dashed when Shauna’s fiance Kevin is found dead in his horse barn, possibly a victim of poison. It turns out that more than a few people might have wished him ill… literally. And one or two of them—or maybe more—just happen to have some connection to the current writer’s retreat. Between Cat’s loyalty to Shauna, her scholar’s dedication to the truth, and her own innate curiosity, it’s inevitable that Cat will try to solve the mystery.

What keeps me reading Lynn Cahoon’s books, besides the small-town atmosphere that I enjoy, is the likeable ordinariness of the characters, especially the main characters (Jill and her police detective boyfriend Greg in the Tourist Trap mysteries; Cat, Shauna, and Cat’s former and current boyfriend Seth in this series.) By “ordinary,” I don’t mean boring; I mean they are people like my friends and neighbors. They’re not eccentric or quirky or unusually gifted. For the most part, they lead ordinary lives, and their relationships, whether romantic and friendly, go through the usual ups and downs.

The romances also progress, thank goodness. I have no patience for series that leave a possible romance in limbo forever, without resolving the question of whether they will get together and/or stay together. You can take plenty of time developing the relationship, but I need to see that is moving in some direction…and I’d like some resolution within a reasonable number of books. Thankfully, Cahoon offers that.

At any rate, Cat reminds me in some ways of myself, and in some ways of various friends of mine. I see traits of various friends in Seth, too, and even in Shauna, though I feel like we (the readers) know her less well than we do Cat and Seth. That easy relatability helps bring the characters to life, and makes me care about them beyond the current mystery plot.

I said above that ordinary didn’t mean “boring,” and I meant it. That goes for the plot, too. While we’d like to think that murder won’t happen in our own lives, the fact is that in real life as in the books, things do happen to relatively ordinary people like Kevin, and like Cat, Seth, and Shauna. It’s true that the latter three seem to get mixed up in an unusual number of murders. (Just for the record, I would never set foot in either of Cahoon’s fictional small towns—too many people die, especially newcomers and visitors.) But it’s the number of murders they encounter that is unusual, not necessarily the circumstances of any particular murder. The murders in these books, like the main characters, are believable because they’re the sorts of things that actually do happen. And just as in this book, I’m sure that in some real-life cases, there are plenty of suspects for the police (and Cat, in the book) to investigate before the real culprit is caught. Of course, unlike real life, you can be sure the murderer in a cozy mystery will be caught!

One of the things that sets this series apart from the Tourist Trap mysteries is a multi-book story arc: a mystery surrounding the actions of Cat’s ex-husband before his death…which may not have been of natural causes. Just what Michael had been working on, and whether and how it led to his death, are still unresolved at the beginning of this mystery, which simply leads to more things for Cat to worry about, wonder about, and try to solve. Is it resolved by the end of Of Murder and Men? Like the solution to Kevin’s murder, that’s something you’ll have to read the book to find out.

I really love this series and especially that there is an underlying mystery about Cat's ex-husband that has continued through each of the three books so far. Sadly I think it was concluded in this book but that doesn't mean that there won't be more that is unraveled going forward.

I love the concept of this book - a writer's retreat at a small B&B in a small town in Colorado. And with each retreat it seems like someone is being murdered, stumbles across a crime or is involved with it somehow. Crazy, right?! But that seems to make this series even more interesting to me.

This time it involves Shauna's boyfriend and while most are not fans of Kevin, he seems to make Shauna happy...until he ends up dead and Shauna is a suspect. And there are some interesting twists with those involved with the writer's retreat and how they play into the crime. Some might seem obvious but others are not.

I hope that the 4th book picks up where this one ends because there is a bit of the story that leaves you hanging and I want to know how a certain scenario plays out for Shauna.

Thanks to Netgalley/Publisher for giving me an opportunity to read this book.

Good cozy book. Writers retreat is a delight for readers!

I have not read the other books in this series. The mystery with the main character Cat's husband getting solved is definitely a plus. The story happens in Aspen Hills Co, in the winter. A murder in this setting is a perfect combo for a cozy mystery. Since 2 murders are getting solved its double the delight.

The information passed on by retreat speakers to budding writers is informational and makes one think about how much effort is put up by an author before a book is published.

The main characters does very little sleuthing unlike contemporaries in this genre. Neverthless, this book is a good read and would recommend.

Princess Fuzzypants here:
Finally! A heroine who gets involved in murders and admits the real reason is the adrenaline rush. That makes sense to me. It drives me crazy when sane women do insane things that are so egregiously dangerous that any fool would avoid it.
There are lots of reasons to enjoy this series, not the least of which is the glimpse inside the creative process of writing through the shared experiences of writer’s retreats. Cat and Shauna, the two friends who run the retreats are both fully fleshed characters. Neither is particularly lucky in love. In fact, Shauna’s fiancé is murdered and Cat finally discovers why her ex=husband “cheated” on her and why he was killed.
Both stories are good strong mysteries and it is satisfying the way the interweave. Another interwoven item: a crossover character from another series the author writes. It is actually pretty cool they way it is done as it advances the stories of both series. Even if you have yet to read both series, I think you will have no trouble following although part of the enjoyment is the subtext that you have gained from reading both of them.
All I know is I would love to attend one of the workshops but I will have to satisfy myself by reading the books.
I give this five purrs and two paws up.