Murder of a Real Bad Boy
Denise Swanson
Signet, August 2006, $6.95, 272 pp.
ISBN 0451218280

She came back to her hometown of Scumble River to lick her wounds and heal with plans to leave her family quickly, but four years later Skye Denison is still in town firmly entrenched in the community working as a school psychologist. When a resident leaves Skye her house as an inheritance, the psychologist hires handsome contractor Beau Hamilton to do the renovation after obtaining great reports about his work; thus far she doesn't understand why as his work is very shoddy.

When she finds the gumption to fire him, Skye sees Beau is not where he is supposed to be at her house. A fear grips her especially when she sees a boat tied to a dock with a severely injured Beau. She races to get him to the hospital but he is DOA and the sheriff who would like to see her in jail and the chief of police, who would like to take her to bed both claim jurisdiction of the crime scene. Skye can't leave well enough alone and manages to inveigle her way into the investigation which brings her face to face with a cold blooded killer again.

The Scumble River mysteries are always a pure delight and the latest novel in the series is no exception as these regional mysteries are special because they are as much about the town and its eccentric residents as it is about the who done it. Side bars abound such as where is the heroine's missing cat is and who is getting into the heroine's home leaving a mess; these instead of being intrusive add extra layers to a fun multi-tiered regional mystery.

Harriet Klausner