A review by rebelbelle13
The Dead Cat Bounce by Sarah Graves

2.0

I realize that the first entry in a cozy mystery series isn't always showcasing the author's best work, but Dead Cat Bounce seems a little iffy at best. It follows the stereotype: a woman in the middle of her life fresh from divorce moves to a secluded little town where everyone knows everyone, and takes up a challenge- a business or otherwise, and finds herself solving murder mysteries. For such a worldly woman- being on her own since the age of 16 and scraping enough money together to go to college and deal with the stock market, money and accounting, Jacobia sure isn't very smart or put together. It takes her ages to figure things out, and she accuses all the wrong people of the murder. The house that she purchased is a literal death trap, and it makes zero sense to keep trying to fix it. Anyone else would tear the thing down and start from scratch. So not only is her sleuthing frustrating, so is her money pit of a house. The plot also seems random and meandering. We're introduced to new characters without much warning, and we're supposed to care about who they are and what they do, even though we're given next to no information about them. It feels very much like there are chapters or information missing. I even double checked to make sure this was the first in the series, and I hadn't skipped over an entire book by mistake. The take-away here is that the premise is interesting, but the story wasn't. The next might be better, but it will be awhile before I try to pick it up.