Title: Painted Death
Subtitle: A Kira Logan Mystery
Author: J. C. Andrew
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 978-1648032394
Pages: 284
Genre: Fiction / Crime/ Mystery
Reviewed by: Jake Bishop
Pacific Book Review
A small town in Alaska becomes the major setting for this contemporary tale of good intentions, bad behavior, and one dead body after another. Before it’s concluded, secrets have been uncovered, villains have been unmasked, and old friends have overcome adversity to finish what they started.
Kira is an artist living in Arizona who gets a request from her old friend Jackie, now a resident of Raven’s Creek, Alaska. Jackie wants Kira to design a mural that will honor the ships, captains, and crews that have been lost to the cold waters in their part of the fiftieth state. Kira accepts, completes the design, and joins Jackie and her husband as their house guest. The plan is for Kira to help Jackie oversee completion of the mural that will not only be painted by them, but also by members of the Raven’s Creek community.
Upon arrival, Kira soon learns that controversy has reared its ugly head. It seems that some members of the community do not want to include the last vessel and its captain in the mural. Why? The captain’s death has been determined to be the result of a gunshot wound, meaning either suicide or murder. Plus there is a lot of speculation that the dead skipper may have been involved in drug trafficking. As rumor and innuendo mount, supposition turns to fear and suspicion when dead bodies begin to turn up in strange places.
Author Joan Andrew fills her tale with a coterie of interesting characters. Here are just a few. There’s Selina, the money-grubbing second wife of the unfortunate aforementioned sea captain. She’s the step-mother of Angela, a young woman on the verge of getting married, and her brother Vin, who longs to break away from his slacker friends. There’s a mysterious fellow named Reynald who appears to be a bookkeeper, but who may in fact be a drug dealer. Owen is a local businessman who has lots of fingers in lots of pies. Detective Savarous is a bull-in-a-china-shop policeman bound and determined to solve a series of what appears to be linked-killings.
Interestingly, Andrew has chosen to tell her tale from multiple perspectives. She combines the minor use of third person omnipotent voice with the majority of exposition coming via first-person narrative from different characters. An unusual approach, but one that adds interest as well as information. She keeps her language free of salty rhetoric even as she navigates some shady goings-on. This is a family-friendly mystery that is likely to appeal to multiple audiences.
