Chicken Culprit by Vikki Walton

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.75 Stars
Series: A Backyard Farming Mystery #1
Publication Date: 2/12/18

This was my first time reading Vikki Walton and I enjoyed it. I’m not sure if the series will continue with characters from this book or if there will be new characters and locations with each new book. I hope that it will be the same characters because I like them very much and because I like a nice romance to go with my mysteries, and this book didn’t have any romance at all. It would be nice to see the main character grow into a nice romance rather than this being the only book containing this particular set of characters.

Anne Freemont is in her forties and is now divorced from an abusive spouse. She is beginning a new life in a lovely, small Colorado town. Anne begins meeting her new neighbors almost immediately when she hears a loud argument and screaming near her new home. When she goes out to check on what is happening, she finds an older gentleman holding a chicken and an ax, and a young woman crying and begging him not to harm her chicken. What an introduction to a new town and a new neighborhood!

Days later Anne is disturbed again, by screaming coming from the same neighbor’s yard. This time, the older man is lying on his compost heap – dead – and the young woman is crouching over him screaming. Could this lovely, lively, and very likable young woman have murdered the crotchety older man? Anne is sure she could not have done it, but all of the evidence points toward her.

There is more than one mystery in the book. There is the haunted and beautiful African-American woman, Kandi’s husband Jeff and, of course, who killed Ralph Rogers. You’ll find the answers to all of those mysteries if you choose to read this lovely book. You will also see the possibility for romance between Anne and the local sheriff and/or Sam, the paramedic and assistant-coroner.

While the resolution to the murder mystery was satisfactory, I felt the ending of the book was a bit lame and contrived. There was no point to it and it only made me scratch my head in what was otherwise a nicely written, well plotted and satisfying mystery.

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“I requested and received this e-book at no cost to me and volunteered to read it; my review is my honest opinion and given without any influence by the author or publisher.”