Can't Judge a Book By Its Murder

I requested this book thinking it would be a cozy mystery written by a Christian author. I did not expect the topics to be better aligned to being a hard-boiled mystery and to encounter profanity, heavy drinking, drunkenness, a book club that's fascinated by books with sex, a heroine who parties, infidelities, and so on. I dislike feeling dirty while reading a novel and thus I did not enjoy this novel.

While there is no sex on screen the situations and the subject matter were depressing and the occasional innuendoes irked me (heroine feeling slightly bad about her super mini skirt, the party where the punch has some secret ingredient which gives everyone bad hangovers, etc).

The small-town vibe didn't feel very authentic, either. Main street shops are all owned by women or two gay men who are portrayed as suppressed and afflicted with old-fashioned values that keep them from wearing wedding rings. There are no family businesses, no hardware stores owned by a friendly bubba sort. The main part of the small-town portrayal is the old women who gossip and use crockpots, and the younger generation who chuckle at their olden ways and go out and drink a lot and who have mostly had lots of affairs with each other over the years. Not a single traditional family in the mix, really. So that element of stepping back to a simpler pace which is often in cozies is also missing.

It further annoyed me that the policemen were portrayed as bumbling blindly on their job and not caring to solve the murder correctly.

Also, with the name Arlo I really pictured the heroine to be an old woman, and there wasn't sufficient description of her until about 100 pages in for me to realize she was young. Not having a clear portrayal of the lead made it hard to root for her/bond with her as a reader.

So, I won't be reading more of this series.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for a free reading copy. A favorable review was not required.