Review: Designed for Death

Designed for Death by Jean Harrington
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

#PopsugarReadingChallenge2019
Prompt - A book featuring an amateur detective: Main character's main occupation is an interior designer.

Devalera Dunne is a young widow from Boston that has moved to a beachfront condominium in Florida to try to start living a normal life again. Tasked with redesigning the condos by her landlord, Deva becomes fast friends with new resident Treasure - a larger than life woman that Deva can't help but like when Treasure asks her to design her new condo. After finding Treasure dead, Deva finds herself again facing the loss of someone she cared for and in more danger than she bargained for when she tries to help with the investigation.

So, perfect cozy mystery set up. Heroine MC that is so far removed from everything she knows about being a detective surrounded by a cast of colorful characters and two men that turn her head. One of those men is named Rossi, so I kept picturing Joe Mantegna from Criminal Minds. To be perfectly honest, that might have helped me enjoy the story a little more. What can I say? He's a handsome man.

Anyhoo.

Therein lies my only point of contention, though. Deva was a grieving widow one second and then jealous about a man she's just met soon-to-be ex-wife coming for a visit the next. Or wondering about the lead investigator's fiancee. And I do mean one second as it was in the exact. same. sentence. It's jarring to see her lament about never being able to love again or feel normal again...and then in the same breath wondering why one of these men isn't paying her any attention. It's also kind of annoying since she's thirty-two years old.

It was a pretty solid mystery though; full of red herrings which I liked just fine since it's cozy. I enjoyed it enough to check out the next in the series.

View all my reviews