The Death Contingency by Nancy Lynn Jarvis

• Title: The Death Contingency
• Author: Nancy Lynn Jarvis
• Series: Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries #1
• Genre: Cozy Mystery
• Takes Place: Santa Cruz
• Main Character: Regan, Kaivan
• Pets: a Cat named Harry
• Stars: 1

This is the first book I have read by this author and if this is an example of the rest of her books, I won’t be reading more. I think this is the lowest star I have ever given to a book, probably because if it is going to be a 1 star, i just don’t finish it. I think I finished this one because I just knew there would be a twist at the end but I was wrong.

Regan is a Real Estate agent and is due to meet with another agent, Kaivan. Regan’s clients are buying Kaivan’s uncle’s house and they are meeting to sign the papers. Kaivan’s Uncle, Cyrus Ansari, is late. They keep waiting and he never shows up. Kaivan doesn’t seem too worried because it isn’t unlike his uncle to take off for a few days without word so he is never reported as missing until he is found dead floating in the ocean. At first they think it was an accident but then it is ruled as murder. Regan decides to play amateur sleuth to find the killer when she stumbles upon another dead body. Now she is trying to find a connection between Uncle Cyrus and this dead woman.

I really wanted to like this book. The idea of a real estate agent as the amateur sleuth intrigued me and I thought it would be interesting. There was a bit too much real estate and not enough sleuthing going on. It felt like the author was just trying to make her word count by going on and on with descriptions of houses she had listed. It got to be a bit boring so I would skip pages. I really thought about not finishing the book but kept reading for a twist in the end. What a letdown when there wasn’t a twist, and the killer was predictable. There wasn’t enough character development. It seemed to spend more time on real estate and not enough time on the mystery. The ending just seemed to fall flat, and I felt like I wasted a few hours of my life reading it.

Well on to my next book!

Happy Reading!