The Death Contingency by Nancy Lynn Jarvis

by Nancy Lynn Jarvis
(Santa Cruz, California, USA)

After twenty years as a Realtor, I thought it would be more fun to kill people than to sell houses. The first result was a 300 page mystery with a Realtor as the protagonist.

Real estate is an interesting business. The stress level involved in buying or selling a home ranks right after death and divorce. People reveal a lot about themselves during the process. The business attracts its share of colorful practitioners, too. Their stories and my experiences provide the backdrop where Realtor and part-time sleuth, Regan McHenry, works while she unravels mysteries - just not always soon enough to stay out of trouble.

She’s aided by her husband, Tom Kiley, a former computer programmer turned real estate broker, and by her friend Dave, a cop reassigned to community public relations after losing an eye in the line of duty.

In The Death Contingency a seller disappears before signing a grant deed. He turns up dead, and his nephew, a Realtor Regan has known for years, becomes a person of interest in his death. She’s convinced the authorities focus is all wrong and sets out to prove it.
Then there’s a second death in the neighborhood. When it’s ruled accidental, Regan again finds herself at odds with the police. She thinks its murder and even thinks she knows who the murderer is; but she has to unravel past secrets before anyone will take her seriously. And, the problem is, she doesn’t want to be right.

The mystery is written in the American cozy style, there's a cat in it whose owners keep dying, and you won't believe some of the back-stories which, except for the central murder, are all true.

Read the first chapter plus at www.GoodReadMysteries.com.