Premeditated Mortar

by Kate Carlisle

December 1, 2020
by Berkley

Rating: 5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Genre: Mystery & Thrillers

About Premeditated Mortar

From Goodreads:

Contractor Shannon Hammer gets tangled up in murder at a spooky old asylum in the latest Fixer-Upper Mystery from New York Times bestselling author Kate Carlisle. . . .

Shannon Hammer is about to embark on one of the biggest projects of her career. Her best friend Jane Hennessey has purchased one wing of the Gables, formerly the old state insane asylum, located on a bucolic hillside two miles northeast of Lighthouse Cove. Jane plans to turn her section into a small luxury hotel complete with twenty ocean-view rooms, a spa, and a restaurant.

Shannon is raring to get started on the enormous project and is shocked when a group of unruly protesters shows up at the groundbreaking ceremony and wreaks havoc. She’s even more freaked-out when someone pushes her into a pit of bricks in a closed-off room of the asylum. Despite her close call, Shannon wants nothing more than to get back to work . . . until she finds a body not far from where she was pushed. Now Shannon is determined to get to the bottom of the goings-on at the Gables even if it kills her. . . .

My thoughts:

This was actually the first of Kate Carlisle’s Fixer-Upper Mystery series that I’ve read. I want to go read the entire series now, just to see the whole story unfold! However, I was able to get sufficient backstory in this book to have a pretty good feel for where things stand. I didn’t feel like I was completely lost without having read the other books.

Shannon Hammer is about to embark on an ambitious project. The Gables, a former psychiatric institution, is being remodeled, and her friend Jane has enlisted Shannon to remodel one of the buildings as the new Hennessey Hotel. Shannon’s significant other Mac has also decided to invest in the project. But not everyone in town is excited about the new development. There are protestors, the former doctor in charge shows up (and boy, she’s a piece of work – it is all about her, her, her), and someone tries to help Shannon to an untimely demise. Thankfully, Shannon is not the dead body in the story, but she does find one. Who killed him, and why? And is everyone really who they appear to be?

I really like the characters in this book! The chemistry between Shannon and Mac is a lot of fun, and I love that Niall has a history of tossing cabers with his buddies. That’s a nifty detail, and it really enhances my mental picture of him. I could have done without mean girl Whitney – I’m not sure she really adds anything to the story. But that isn’t enough for me to knock down my rating. This was a delight to read. Now, if you’re someone who likes the mystery/dead body to pop up right off the bat, this may not be your cup of tea. Shannon and her crew don’t find the corpse until about 2/3 of the way into the book. I enjoyed all the set-up, though. I was fascinated by the description of how she evaluated the renovation and the work that would need to be done.

Five stars, and now I’ve got to go read all of these books.

Disclaimer: I received an advance reader copy from NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group. All opinions here are mine, and I don’t say nice things about books I don’t actually like.