Still Knife Painting (A Paint & Shine Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Publisher: Kensington (June 30, 2020)
Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages

Synopsis

Miranda Trent has set up a sweet life in a scenic corner of Appalachia—until she stumbles across the trail of a killer . . .

After inheriting her uncle’s Red River Gorge homestead in Eastern Kentucky—smack dab in the middle of the Daniel Boone National Forest—Miranda comes up with a perfect business plan for summer tourists: pairing outdoor painting classes with sips of local moonshine, followed by a mouthwatering sampler of the best in southern cooking.

To Miranda’s delight, Paint & Shine is a total success—until someone kills the cook. As the town’s outsider, suspicion naturally falls on Miranda. Murdering the best biscuit baker of Red River Gorge is a high crime in these parts. Miranda will have to prove her innocence before she’s moved from farmhouse to jail cell faster than she can say “white lightning” . . .

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Review

Merriment, Moonshine, and Murder – not exactly what you expect to find on a cultural tour in Kentucky.

This is a new series and I found it to be intriguing.  Set in Kentucky near the Daniel Boone National Park, I could imagine the hikes they took to Lover’s Leap, the small town with nosy citizens, properties set apart where cell service was sparse, and fascinating relationships between the various characters.  I felt like I was in the middle of nowhere with Miranda and the rest of the gang.  I could picture the mountains, the forest, and the small town with a few shops and businesses to frequent.  I really liked Miranda’s business – Paint & Shine.  I don’t know a lot about painting or moonshine but this is a tour I would check out.

The mystery is who killed Mrs. Childers and why.  Miranda had an argument with her (and maybe a few others) about serving moonshine and educating guests about its history.  While some of those might have had personal issues with alcohol, it surprised me how close minded some of these people were in reality.  The potential pool of killers is small, but who would have a motive to kill her?  When the truth is revealed, it was not surprising, but at the same time, it was amazing that a secret could be kept for all those years.  I suspected the killer but had no idea why this character would want to kill anyone.

The characters provided twists to the story and added background.  While Miranda might have visited the town growing up, she had a lot to learn about her uncle’s connection to the town and how these people played into his life and even Miranda’s.  I chuckled at the one police officer that had a weak stomach and was a bit of a bumbling character.  Not knowing much about the police in Kentucky, the tension between the Lexington police and those in the sheriff’s department in Wolfe County, was based on an old rivalry.  This could cause some issues in getting murders solved if there is not a common desire to work together.

I think there might be the beginning of a love interest for Miranda with Austin, the local Forest Ranger.  He seems very level headed and would be a good balancing character for Miranda.

Overall a good start to a new series and I look forward to seeing what develops next.  We give this 4 paws.

About the Author

Cheryl Hollon now writes full-time after she left an engineering career of designing and building military flight simulators in amazing countries such as England, Wales, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, and India. Fulfilling the dream of a lifetime, she combines her love of writing with a passion for creating glass art. In the small glass studio behind her house in St. Petersburg, Florida, Cheryl and her husband design, create, and produce fused glass, stained glass, and painted glass artworks.

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