Renovated to Death by Frank Anthony Polito is the debut of A Domestic Partners in Crime Mysteries. I thought Renovated to Death had a unique premise with a predominately gay cast of characters. We met JP and PJ who are domestic partners and the stars of Domestic Partners, a renovation show. They are going to renovate the home twins, Tom and Terry inherited from their parents. The home has been neglected for twenty-five years. On the day filming is to begin, they find Tom Cash dead at the base of the stairs. The police initially rule the death accidental, but then the case is ruled a homicide. PJ uses his skills as a mystery writer and JP his experience as a cop on a television show to solve the crime. The list of suspects is quite lengthy and includes some of the partner’s friends. The pair work to uncover the truth about the crime. I struggled to read Renovated to Death. The POV switches around which makes it confusing along with the large cast of characters. With so many names sounding familiar, I kept getting the people confused (JP, PJ, Tom, Terry, Cam, Bob, Hank). I did feel the main characters needed to be more fleshed out. The pacing varied throughout the book. Sometimes it zipped along and other times it dragged. There are some chapters that seemed to lag on forever. While I found the chapter about the noxious smell in the basement amusing, I felt like it went on too long. There are several chapters like this. There were also repeated phrases and descriptions especially about people. A couple of examples are the baseball hats the twins wore, a man’s smoking, one man’s muscles, and the gap between one man’s teeth. We only need to be told once. The mystery did not begin until I was a third of way into the book. The clues begin to appear in the second half of the book. There are plenty of them to help readers solve the crime before the reveal. I enjoyed the detailed descriptions of the various homes. I could visualize the beautiful homes from the author’s word imagery. I can tell the author likes the Detroit area. It really came through in the writing. I enjoyed the side storyline about PJ and JP adopting a puppy. The adoption scene had me smiling. I was put off by the frequent mentions of intimacy as well as how appealing a person is to someone (describing their body in detail for example). There are no explicit scenes, but the connotations are prevalent. I did feel the gay men were portrayed in a stereotypical way (the 80s version of gay men). Renovated to Death was a mixed bag for me. When I end up skimming, I know I am not enjoying the book. If you are on the fence, download a sample to check it out for yourself. Renovated to Death is a campy cozy mystery with troublesome twins, a stinky smell, renovation realities, a stair skirmish, mishap or murder, and snooping partners. ( )

I enjoyed this book! I decided to give this book a try because I was in the mood for a cozy and I really liked that this book features LGBT+ characters. I found this book to be a super quick read that was hard to put down and I ended up reading most of it in a single day. I thought that this was an excellent first installment in a series that I am looking forward to following.

PJ and JP are almost ready to film the second season of their home renovation show but in order to get things started, they need a house to feature. Luck would have it that there is a house in their neighborhood that was recently inherited by identical twins, Tom and Terry, that needs a lot of updating. Things take an unfortunate turn when Tom is found dead inside the house and it may not have been an accident.

I liked all of the characters and was incredibly pleased to see LGBT+ representation in a cozy mystery. This really was a fun little mystery. I did figure out the mystery pretty early on but I had a good time watching the characters put the pieces of the puzzle together. I had hoped to see a little more home renovation in the story but everything in this book takes place just prior to the start of the actual renovation. I really enjoyed the fact that on top of filming a show and solving a murder, PJ and JP also worked to adopt a dog.

I would definitely recommend this book to others. I had a great time reading this book and couldn’t wait to see how things would work out for all of the characters. I look forward to reading more of this author’s work in the future.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Kensington Books via NetGalley. ( )

I was really torn on how many stars to give Renovated to Death by Frank Anthony Polito. I thought it was really well written and enjoyed the detailed descriptions of the various house’s architecture. The brunch scenes had me wanting to join the guys for a bite to eat, and you could feel so much emotion in the dog adoption scenes. But I found myself skimming a lot with this book.

While I did enjoy the detailed descriptions of the houses, some of the scenes just seemed to drag on and on. The chapter with the horrible smell did make me chuckle, it also seemed to be never ending, and unfortunately that wasn’t the only one. I also found myself skimming some of the conversations because physical descriptions were repeated so much; gap in teeth, type of baseball hat, and smoking are just a few that instantly come to mind.

I requested to read an ARC via Netgalley for Renovated to Death because I was happy to see a cozy mystery include gay men as the main characters. While diversity in cozies is happening, I feel like there could be a lot more. I can see some of the more traditional cozy readers not enjoying this book because of the heavier use of sexuality in it. While there is no graphic sex, it does seem to be a more central theme in the book. The campiness and overtly stereotypical way that the gay men were portrayed did get to be a bit much for me after awhile.

As for the whodunnit, which didn’t start until 30% into the story, which made the beginning drag a bit, I found it very easy to figure out because of all the repetition. But since I read a lot of mysteries, other readers may not have such an easy time figuring out what happened.

I would give book two in A Domestic Partners in Crime series a read, especially since this is Polito’s first book and there are always growing pains, but if I found myself skimming again, I probably wouldn’t continue reading the series. ( )

This is a cozy murder mystery set in a Detroit gentrified neighbourhood with a high percentage of gay men. It's a whodunit murder mystery story, with several viable suspects. The story is told from the point of view of a pair of TV celebrities, called the Domestic Partners, whose show features the complete restoration of an architecturally significant house.

The sudden death of "daddy" Tom Cash threatens the restoration of his ancestral home by the cute duo of TV celebrities called the "Domestic Partners". Tom's twin brother quickly rescues the renovation despite his earlier resistance to the idea. However, when Tom's twink boy toy suggests that his death was not accidental as the police believe, the Domestic Partners become amateur detectives.
The storytelling is done in a highly melodramatic style and with brisk pacing. It makes for an entertaining read, free of profanity, graphic sex, gratuitious violence. The stage is set for a sequel, and maybe an interesting series of "quozies''.
Two pluses:
There's a sidebar story about the Domestic Partners adopting a rescue dog, named Clyde: kudos to organizations like Home FurEver that provided their dog, and
A down-to-earth essay entitled: "Home Renovations Rules for DIY-ers". appended to the end of the book, it's about do-it-yourself renovations written with a voice of experience.

Thanks to Kensington Books and Netgalley for providing a complementary advance reading copy of the book for my unsolicited review. ( )

Michigan, M/M cozy-mystery, television, red-herrings, renovation, family, friendship, family-dynamics, murder, murder-investigation, law-enforcement, rivalry, actors, writers, twins, situational-humor, verbal-humor, snarky****

Needs work. Starts off as more of a bodice ripper for the very uninhibited gay crowd (more like some of the modern hetero bar and bed hoppers in some of the more recent police procedurals). I was getting bored except that the renovation stuff was really good and I'm a sucker for a plot that has dog rescues in it. Then comes the murder of the client and their best friend becoming chief suspect, and I couldn't put it down. Think it is a good start to a fun series that will get better with each addition.
I requested and received a free temporary e-book from Kensington Books via NetGalley. Thank you! ( )