This is a interesting book. It’s got interesting characters and a good story. I didn’t enjoy it as much though since it really doesn’t have a real line of the plot. It’s just about the characters & not much else. #LiveLocalAndDead #NetGalley

Live, Local, and Dead by Nikki Knight
Book #1: Vermont Radio Mystery Series
Source: NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books
Rating: 3½/5 stars

The Bottom Line: I have to admit my two favorite parts of this book are the candy-eating moose and the blowing away of the snowman at the very beginning. When a book starts with such an explosive scene (HA!) I expected the rest of the book to follow suit. Unfortunately, the rest of the book didn’t quite live up to the exciting beginning. With that said, I still liked this story, the setting, the oddity of the local radio angle, and the locals. At present, Jaye is a bit too brash for my taste, but I like all the other characters and am willing to give this series another chance. I would like to see Jaye a bit more toned down, but I *think* I can get beyond that issue given all the other characters I take no issue with and genuinely want to see evolve and stay involved in future plots. Furthermore, I find it hard to turn my back on a series that is doing something so fun like a live, local radio show, especially one that features such good music. Oh, and this series has a candy-eating moose 😊

Live, local and dead is such a fun read. Nikki’s writing is really easy and thrilling and it’s a fast paced read full of twists and interesting turns. I have to admit that the plot was a little bit dragged at times but overall it was such a great book and if you like thrillers I think you’ll enjoy this one

This was such a light, fun and enjoyable read. Oh my, what a way to start the story, it certainly grabbed my attention! There were also some really funny moments. Not a lot of sleuthing by the lead character, Jaye, but she is a very likeable lady and her approach to the radio station, her family values and her commitment to the community get her a great deal of support throughout the ordeal.

The moose is my hero! He's just gorgeous!

There are some important issues covered in the storyline and reassurance that, sometimes, despite how we'd like things to be; it's not all black and white.

Not sure where this is likely to go if there is a series. It seems such a well-contained story...hmmm!

With thanks to #Netgalley, Crooked Lane Books and the author for my advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I asked for Live, Local, and Dead, a book written by Nikki Knight, because the synopsis intrigued me and I was in the mood for some cozy mystery drama. Did I get my money’s worth (in a metaphorical way, as I grabbed it from NetGalley)?

Hm. Not quite.

**


Death waits for snowman in Nikki Knight’s new Vermont-based cozy series, perfect for fans of Connie Archer and Mary Kennedy.

In a fit of anger, radio DJ Jaye Jordan blows a snowman’s head off with a Revolutionary War-style musket. But the corpse that tumbles out is all too human. Jaye thought life would be quieter when she left New York City and bought a tiny Vermont radio station. But now, Edwin Anger–the ranting and raving radio talk show host who Jaye recently fired–lies dead in the snow. And the Edwin Anger fans who protested his dismissal are sure she killed him.

To clear her name, Jaye must find the real killer, as if she doesn’t have her hands full running the radio station, DJing her all-request love song show, and shuttling tween daughter Ryan to and from school. It doesn’t make matters easier that the governor–Jaye’s old crush–arrived on the scene before the musket smoke cleared. Fortunately, Jaye has allies…if you count the flatulent moose that lives in the transmitter shack, and Neptune, the giant gray cat that lives at the station.

If Jaye can turn the tables on the devious killer, she and the governor may get to make some sweet, sweet music together. But if she can’t, she’ll be off the air…permanently.

304 pages
Cozy mystery
Crooked Lane Books
Goodreads

**

Cover: Nice! I like the cat & dj console combo; the title color, however, is the visual equivalent of a kick in the shin. White would have been a better choice.

Yay!

- Live, Local, and Dead follows the adventures of Jacqueline ‘Jaye’ Jordan, a radio DJ who moves to Vermont with her daughter after divorcing her husband. Some people like her; some don’t, because another radio show gets canceled after her arrival. When a dead body shows up, things get even more complicated.

- I appreciated Knight’s attempt to make a political statement out of Live, Local, and Dead. Trying to raise awareness about certain themes is important, even when it’s done via the pages of a book.

- Some parts are engaging or downright funny—the moose—while the cast of characters seems to support the story well. The MC comes off as honest and hardworking, and the romantic bits add to the plot.

Nay!

- This cozy mystery is not really cozy and Jaye doesn’t do anything about it. Someone else solves both the Governor issue and the main issue. Plus, the inciting incident seems to leave her unfazed; I was expecting false accusations, lingering doubts, maybe even a bit of misdirected self-guilt. I got nothing. A person kicks the bucket and people are just standing there, trying not to make inappropriate jokes. Color me puzzled.

- Weird sentence structure, verbal tenses switch, and inconsistencies pepper the book. I had to stop reading more than once in order to figure out what was going on, and that was a mood killer.

- Some characters are just too stereotyped. Tropes and fixed traits exist for a reason, but having Evil Character A and Good Character B with no space for any nuance is meh.

- Sending positive messages is a great thing, as I pointed out before; ditching the plot in order to do so feels a little sloppy. As I’m reading a book and not listening to a debate, I’d expect both plot and message to be present throughout the story.

TL;DR
2 stars on GR.

⭐⭐.5 rounded up
This is the first in the Vermont Radio Mystery series.
Aww cannot resist a book with a kitty on the cover. 🤗 However, when this story started with a snowman’s head getting shot off, I stopped to recheck the cover again.
Yes the story does start with that poor innocent snowman.
Jaye Jordan, recently divorced, has taken over a radio station in Vermont ~ hence the title of this series.
It appears the town is upset with Jaye as the new owner for removing one of the town’s favorite talk shows hosts. Her home is also where she has the radio station and now is constantly surrounded by protesters. She decides to warn them off and runs outside and shoots the snowman in her yard. However, there was a body stuffed inside this snowman… WHAT?

Okay there are some tender moments in this story.

Want to thank NetGalley and Crooked Lance Books for this eGalley. This file has been made available to me before publication in an early form for an honest professional review.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for February 8, 2022

Live, Local and Dead is the first book in a new series called Vermont Radio Mystery. Our protagonist is radio DJ Jaye Jordan who is recently divorced from husband David. She also has a young daughter Ryan.

The book starts of big, big and loud, loud as with a bang. Jaye is tired of the protestors and shoots the head off a snowman. Protestors who are angry that the previous DJ had been taken off the air for Jaye. I had already seen some reviews but I always try to go in with an open mind, but honestly..... I feel I should have left it there. Because inside the snowman is a dead person.... Which they first find at the end of Chapter 2 even though Jaye shoots the snowman's head off in the very first sentence of the book.... So you would say they would find it then and there....

I also could not get a connection with the characters, the book felt a little all over the place, I could not really focus on it. While the plot surrounding a body stuffed inside a snowman seemed very cool to me and a new idea which could have worked out great, I didn't feel this book. I also felt it wasn't really a Cozy Cozy as we know. The protagonist didn't do any sleuthing, an the police really did all the work which you don't even read about. So due to that I would not classify this as a Cozy Mystery, not a Mystery at all, but more a novel of a woman trying to get her life up and running again.

If you are a Cozy Mystery and Mystery lover.... I don't think you will like it. I personally would not recommend it to readers of this genre which is a shame because there was potential. I would have given 2,5 stars but I can only go for 2 or 3, so it's a 2 for me.....

I did not like this book. From the characters to the writing style there is just so much wrong with it. There was not much to like about the story and the wording and structuring seem off.

I'm not even sure what to say in this review, I just didn't like it. It was such an odd story with no real structure.

This was not a favorite of mine. I found the story to be more straight fiction than mystery. The main character is hard to connect with and at times irritating. I found some of the comments and rants to be targeted towards a different audience. It reads like an author's first attempt.I just really had a hard time getting into the story or really even caring about what happened.

Live, Local and Dead is the debut of the Vermont Radio Mystery series set in small town Southern Vermont and featuring radio DJ Jaye Jordan. Recently divorced from husband David, Jaye has taken over a small radio station in VT just across the river from where her cancer survivor ex lives in NH. She is settling in to her new home which also houses the radio station, splitting custody of her young daughter Ryan, and beginning to blend into the community.

The book starts off with a bang - literally! Jaye is fed up with the protestors who keep appearing outside the station, upset that their favorite talk show, the Edwin Anger show has been taken off the air and they are blaming Jaye. Jaye picks up a muzzleloader, heads outside and blows a hole in a nearby snowman in order to scare the protestors off. I should have put the book down and deleted it from my library within those first few pages, but I chose to soldier on.

As a resident of a small town in Vermont and a responsible gun owner (and hunter), how the author could even include the description of the town square with folks ambling around or sitting in their cars, mention that Jaye had no idea if the gun was even loaded or not and then have her march outside and fire off the weapon is beyond me. Completely irresponsible writing.

While the plot surrounding a body stuffed inside a snowman had potential, there was just something off putting to me about the entire book. I couldn't relate to the main character (or her musical selections) at all, and don't get me started on the idea of hand feeding candy to a wild moose. I know, I know - it's a fictional cozy mystery. Sadly, I won't be "tuning" in to this particular series again, but that's just me.

I received an advanced copy of Live, Local and Dead from NetGalley via Crooked Lane Books. While not required to write a review I am happy to offer my honest opinion.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing the ARC.


This is not a cozy mystery. It seems to be a mix of cozy and contemporary story. it was a good reading but it is not for everyone. It targets particular audience and the ploy is not subtle. Also, I liked the reviving of local radio station

Radio DJ Jaye Jordan blows a snowman’s head off with a Revolutionary War-style musket however there is a real dead body inside. I liked the change of pace this mystery had. It’s the first in the series and has great potential.
#LiveLocalandDead #NetGalley

This is the first mystery I can recall where no one does any actual investigating. The reader, unless they are completely new to mysteries, knows immediately who did the crimes and why. There are only one or two possibilities for each crime. The police do all investigation off page. Yay! The police are actually doing their job. Occasionally, one of the on page characters sees or finds something related to the crimes.

The story also exalts all things Vermont to a slightly excessive degree. It also mentions religion quite a bit, though it does a good (and unusual) job at describing the main character's conversion from Christianity to Judaism. A positive message is provided by showing that Jaye just doesn't pay lip service to her conversion. However, like exalting Vermont, there is a bit too much positive messaging about parenting and divorcing correctly, same sex relationships, etc.

So, as a mystery, Live, Local, and Dead barely rated an OK rating. There really was no mystery for me. It reads more like a fiction novel about a woman starting over after a divorce without any of the usual drama.

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I appreciate the publisher allowing me to read this book.. I really enjoyed the settings and the characters and can't wait to read more.

This novel is set in a small town in Vermont, and the action starts when Jaye Jordan, in a fit of anger, shoots a snowman only to find out that, inside the snowman, is a dead human being (that much is on the blurb, so isn't a spoiler!).

What follows is more a portrait of life in a small town in Vermont than a traditional murder mystery - though the murder holds the plot together. Jaye is a radio presenter and has come into ownership of the local radio station. She is also recently divorced, so a single mother.

The action on the murder does not crack along, but the characters felt real and the descriptions were often quite funny. 

"I was vaguely aware of the smarmy creep's existence because David's one-hundred-and-three-year-old grandfather watched the Gadflies all the time, driving his liberal parents crazy. That, and a lawsuit against Frat Boy for his harassment of a town council member in a nearby suburb who'd called for a resolution deploring a high-profile white supremacist march."

Politics comes into the book. Under Trump, the US saw an eruption of the politics of race, gender and sexual identity. Jaye's relationships with her relatives and some of her friends, while not defined by politics, are coloured by them. That 103-year-old grandfather referred to above is not the only person in the book who is at the other end of the political spectrum from Jaye and those politics also underpin much of the plot.

The novel, though, is more than the politics. As the story evolves, we see the friendships, enmities and alliances in a small town. The community comes across as deeply religious, though not in an in-your-face way:

"Meave - in full vestments - and what sure looked like all of St Michael's parishioners were standing at the base of the porch, many muttering things that would not have been appropriate in a sanctuary."

One thing I also liked a lot about the book was that people laugh. The writing itself is funny, but the way the characters blow off steam through wit and jokes is very real, and very well depicted. I don't mean set piece jokes, but snappy rejoinders and defusing tense situations through humour. Writers (including myself) often forget this aspect of life; this novel was a healthy reminder.

All in all, this was a worthwhile read. I don't know if the author will succeed in serialising the work - in a sense, I hope she won't as there's only so much crime a small town in Vermont can take, and the result would be a written soap opera - but as a standalone read, this was very satisfying.

This book was provided to me compliments of #NetGalley for my honest opinion. A née cozy series with a lot of promise. I love a good cozy mystery and welcome a new series.

I received this book for free for an honest review from netgalley #netgalley

Not my normal cozy read. But it was interesting to see the different profession I normally wouldn't have picked this out but I'm glad that I gave it a try.

New series. You gotta love the animal hunor in this fast fun read! Lots of twists and turns. Love the radio station setting. Thanks #netgalley and #Crookedlanebooks for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are mine.

This book was sent to me on Kindle by Netgalley for review. It is a cozy story with a hint of mystery and intrigue. I enjoyed this quick read and hope to read more from this author. Curl up with this one and a warm blanket and enjoy.