Murder at Haven's Rock by Kelley Armstrong

 

While I finished the book, it's probably one for the "nothing special" file. It's tied to (if not exactly a part of) a pretty extensive series of novels, and there's a lot of stuff that's clearly behind what's happening, most of which just hangs there in the background like a theater scrim. There are severe plausibility problems at the premise level. And while there is at least one actual murder that happens in the novel, the stakes of the investigation keep getting lowered as the novel goes on, not heightened--at least, until the very end--which goes some length to give the whole thing a bit of a cozy feel, and I kinda loathe cozy. That said, the characters are mostly reasonably well-written and well-distinguished from each other (and the ones who remain murky mostly do so by author intent, I think) and the prose is reasonably competent, there's even some occasional wit and sparkle. The story ends up being kinda needlessly overcomplicated, which does not play well with the diminishing stakes. There's a lot more to this author's work and I probably won't read any of it.