Murder by Death

The Savannah Martin series is a self-published series by Jenna Bennett, an author who also writes the DIY cozy series published by Berkeley Prime Crime.  Why this series wasn't picked up by a major publisher I can't imagine.  I think it's even better than her DIY series.

The series starts with Cutthroat Business and is centred around Savannah Martin, a woman raised in the genteel south to be A Lady of the Southern Persuasion.  As book one opens she's rebounding after her Good Marriage has ended (her Lawyer husband left her for his paralegal, declaring her "frigid"), starting a new life and a new career as a real estate agent.  On her first house showing, she meets (re-meets?) Rafe - a boy from her hometown's "other side of the tracks" - now a very imposing man of the Bad Boy Persuasion.  Thus begins a series centred on murder and mayhem but with an over arcing storyline about Savannah and Rafe;  how they come together despite some rather serious social obstacles that are real for her, and some rather serious psyche/historical issues that are real for him.

By book 7, Kickout Clause, most of the angst and hard stuff is worked out and for those that read books 1-6 we get to kick back and enjoy watching Rafe and Savannah together, without giving up the steam these two generate together.  (For those that haven't read the previous books, I believe this book would still stand well on it's own.)  Don't misunderstand me - this is NOT a romance series - the main plot lines are always about murder.  But these two together are steamy, tense, and in earlier books, sometimes a tiny bit scary.  

Ms. Bennett, I think, does an excellent job fleshing out the problems that confront two people from opposite sides of the social spectrum, while not dwelling on it and making it the focus of the story.  Savannah has to fight against her upbringing as a Southern Lady, with all the bigotry, snobbery and intolerance that goes with it.  Rafe is the child of a mixed race relationship in an area of the US that is, shall we say, lagging behind the rest of the country (world) in tolerance of such things.  So while she finds herself head-over-heels and completely committed to Rafe, she's frustrated with herself for certain fall-back assumptions she finds it hard to banish from her everyday thoughts.  All of this backstory creates characters that are far more rich and three-dimensional than your average cozy cast.  These lives feel real as they come off the page.  Except, perhaps, for all the dead bodies.

The dead bodies.  There's only one in this book and it's sort of an unexpected one.  Which means it could be anybody.  Lots of suspects, no suspects.  There are also 2 or 3 sub plots/mysteries running through this book.  An ex-boss.  An ex-husband.  Real Estate drama.  There's a lot going on!  But they're all written together well and I never found myself struggling to keep things straight.  I found the ending of the actual murder plot to be a bit surprising and if I think about it too hard, a bit unfair to the readers.

All-in-all, I really enjoyed this book, enjoy this series and I'm happy to see it continuing on.