A review of “The Tell All (Locust Point Mystery Book 1)” by Libby Howard

Full disclosure – I was provided a copy of this book by the author however I have voluntarily chosen to write a review. All opinions are my own

A Clean Cozy with a likeable lead character

At sixty, Kay Carrera has found herself starting over. With the death of her beloved husband Eli, Kay is now alone in her vintage Victorian in Locust Point. Her job as a skip tracer for a local PI doesn’t quite make enough to pay the mortgage and she just can’t bring herself to sell her family home. At the advice of a friend, she grudgingly takes a roommate – a local judge who needs a stable place to live with his two teenage children while going through a divorce. If getting used to her new living arrangement wasn’t bad enough, Kay has also landed herself knee deep in a scandal involving a madam, a dead body and a well-kept secret in a town full of gossips.

The Tell All is a clean cozy mystery and the first book I have read by author Libby Howard. Kay is a likeable older lady who is just trying to adjust to life after the death of her husband. Her town Locust Point is one of those sleepy little affairs where there probably isn’t more than 2000 people, and everyone knows everyone else’s business. The story is simplistic, but that is not a bad thing because it is a very easy read. The characters and locations are such that one does not have difficulty envisioning the story. In fact, Locust Point could be in practically any city in the world. Kay could be your neighbor. Judge Beck, Daisy and even Kay’s employer J.T. with his aspirations of landing a reality TV show based on the exciting life of a PI are all very relatable characters who also add a bit of comedy to the story. I really enjoyed The Tell All and may check out the other two titles in this series. I would be interested to see the whole “seeing ghosts” aspect developed a little further as that was an interesting premise but was only barely touched on. Possible in Howard’s later books, this element is fleshed out in more detail.
If you like your mysteries clean, with likeable characters and a generous dose of humor, The Tell All would be a good one to try.