Didn't really like this book, though it wasn't the stuff of DNF. I think a number of factors were involved, including what might be a cultural divide in terms of narrative style.

Susie Mahl is a fine artist who supplements her income by doing high-end pet portraits, something that also allows her to move amongst those that occupy the rarefied air of wealth. While working on a commission that came about through a recommendation by Lady Greengrass to a neighbor, Lord Greengrass is murdered. Susie is close enough to the family that Lady Greengrass calls on her to stay until the funeral, a request Susie uses as an opportunity to solve the mystery.

I'll start with the plotting; it was lacking. There was never any question for me as to who the murderer was. In fact:
the reader enters the scene seconds after the murder has occurred, as the murderer has just finished and so is still right there (sitting atop the victim if I remember correctly).
The whole thing was truly transparent and the author never came close to convincing me that there were any other viable suspects.

Susie Mahl, as a character, was problematic for me. She is strong, independent and opinionated. Things I generally like in my MCs. But she also had an ego that often ventured into "I'm better than everyone else" territory, and I didn't care for that. This arrogance spanned across several subjects, but the most distasteful, to me, were the multiple times she expressed her belief that she alone could solve the mystery, and the inspectors would never figure it out. How I'd have loved to see one of those inspectors tell her they could do portraits better than she could.

Finally, the overall writing style just didn't do it for me; it felt choppy and the dialog simplistic and unnatural. Some of this might be a cultural style, as I mentioned above, and some of it could be first-book-learning-curve, but added to my other issues, the result is a lack of desire to continue the series. ( )

Definitely should not be compared to Agatha Christie. The author constantly wrote long complex sentences so reading felt very tedious to me. Maybe I just enjoy my cozy mysteries to quick and simple and not to bore me with long overly detailed sentences. Also the lead characters personality really began to annoy me. Unfortunately, I would not recommend this book to those looking for a good cozy mystery to curl up with on a rainy day. ( )

I liked the descriptions of Susie's paintings and her interaction with the pets she makes portraits of. However, as a cozy English mystery it certainly wasn't a la Agatha Christie as stated on the back of the book. The mystery was too easy to solve. It's a good book to read on the beach or plane. ( )

While I do enjoy English cozy murder mysteries, this was, unfortunately, a poor example of the genre. The lead didn’t have much personality outside of constantly thinking about men and reminding the reader how nosy she is. She also removed or disturbed evidence from crime scenes on a few occasions while acting like she and the police were in some kind of competition. I know it’s usually the way for these amateur detectives to turn out to be smarter than the professionals in these kinds of books, but the way she kept casually dismissing them rubbed me the wrong way.

As for the plot, the killer was immediately obvious, and the rest of the book was slow-moving. One recurring problem was that the author fell into the trap of going into lengthy legal and medical talk, presumably to show that she did her research. Overall, a disappointing read. ( )

I requested this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program because it sounded like a cute cozy mystery. When I think of cozy mysteries, usually the woman who tries to solve the mystery ends up in some trouble due to her nosing around. This book does not follow the typical cozy mystery arc that I expected and wanted, which left it a little boring and slow-moving. For people interested in reading a light, British mystery, I'd recommend trying this, but it wasn't my favorite. I will not be continuing with the series, despite the concept of the pet portraitist as a main character being very appealing. Who knows, maybe the next one will be more exciting? ( )