Firstly thank you to NetGalley for this ARC - took longer than expected to come around to finishing it. My first initial impressions weren't good and I wasn't really enjoying the fist 50% or so of the book.
We are introduced to Charlotte 'Charms' Lucky, a local town girl who moved to LA from a small town called Gett, her aspiring actress dreams are put on hold as she returns to Gett to help her grandfather out with their whiskey distillery Lucky Whiskey. The character of Charms for me became annoying and irritating with such quotes like "Channeling my inner brat" or "I stomped my feet like a child" - I am not sure how the author expects us to relate to 20-something woman acting like a child who wasn't getting her way.

Her grandfather Jack is suspect number 1 for the death of their employee Roger who is found on the distillery premises in a cask. She then embarks on her own investigation to find out the real killer. This is where I began to get annoyed with her behaviour. Thankfully after the 50% mark - her behaviour changed and became more appropriate, much better humour added to the story. And this is what saved the rating for me. As one other reviewer mentioned, if this was become a series Charlotte would need a character improvement in order for the reader to relate in some way.

I am reviewing this book for Mystery Scene magazine and you can see my full review in the June 15th issue

Hollywood actress Charlotte "Charms" Lucky comes comes home to Gett, Florida to care for her grandfather after his heart attack. Caring for him entails taking care of their whiskey distillery and opening a cask leads to the discovery of the body of an employee in the whiskey. When her grandfather is arrested for the murder, Charlotte knows she will have to look for the killer herself. Her high school nemesis, Brodie Gett of Gett whiskey, says he'll help, but is he trying to distract her and keep one of his own family from being caught?
This is a solid first novel in a series where the small town's two biggest employers are rival whiskey distillers. Family loyalty is more important than anything else. The ending is abrupt, maybe because the author plans on starting the next installment where this book left off?

Thank you to NetGalley and Midnight Ink Publishers for providing me with an advance copy of A Shot of Murder by J. A. Kazimer, the first in a new series featuring Charlotte Lucky, known to most of the people in town as Charms. It is set in a small town in Florida where Charms and her family are known for their Lucky Brand of Whiskey.
The book has a good plot, with Charms discovering the body of her whiskey label’s master brewer in the cask of the current batch of whiskey that is aging. Unfortunately, the plot gets lost in the various themes of the book and the telling of the story from Charms point of view.
Before for the plot can get established these themes begin, starting with the running feud between the Lucky family and the Gett family, for whom the town is named. The feud reads a lot like a David and Goliath type relationship characterized by constant bickering and the on-going rivalry between the two families with the Gett family being the family who owns and basically runs the town and the Lucky family being the struggling family the Getts would like to own. Predictably, Brodie, the handsome Gett son steps up to try and help Charms clear her grandfather of the murder after his older brother, the sheriff in town, arrests him. The remainder of the book is constant bickering and misunderstanding between Brodie and Charms.
In addition to the relationship between the two central characters who are “curiously” drawn to one another, there is a theme of the hard-luck, poorly educated South. The story is told in the first person by Charms who constantly uses incorrect English. Assuming this is deliberate rather than the author’s mistake, it grates on the reader as it constantly pulls you out of the story. In addition, there are often words that, although correctly spelled, are the wrong word for the sentence; the author’s tendency to remind us constantly of certain facts such as that Charms once acted in an STD commercial while living in California; and Charms’ behavior which is more consistent with an adolescent than a grown woman. The combination is one that serves to frustrate the reader and take away from what was a reasonably good plot otherwise.
The overall book comes across as a caricature of the south and southerners, portraying the region as poor, uneducated, “good ‘ole boys, living a hardscrabble life on the edge of the Everglades. No doubt the south has its share of both these, but a constant diet of them throughout the pages of a full-length novel becomes tedious and ultimately serves to detract from the book. The novel may have an audience among those people who enjoy shows such as “Duck Dynasty” and “Moonshiners”, but may ultimately wind up frustrating other readers more than it entertains.

A Shot of Murder is a cozy mystery which takes place in rural Collier County, Florida. The victim turns up in a barrel of whiskey at the protagonists' uncle's distillery. Interestingly enough, Gett. a town of ~900 has a second distillery and our narrator immediately focuses in on the family owning the other distillery as being responsible for the murder.
The story contains a number of jumps in logic from our protagonist, Charlotte "Charms" Lucky, none of which seem to hold up under the slightest scrutiny. Charlotte's investigation suffers from the unwillingness of others in the town to help as they are still apparently resentful of a stunt she pulled as a drunk teen involving the local water tower, many years previously. The twist at the end in regards to the water tower was unsurprising.
It's a quick read, reasonably enjoyable, but clearly in need of a proof-reader. It's hard to keep pace with a book when the author keeps substituting the word lured for lurid.

A typical romantic suspense book where Lucky Charlotte a whiskey maker and Brody Gett another whiskey maker get involved as they try and solve the murder of one of Luck'y whiskey companies employees. Everything takes place in a small town where everyone knows everyone else's business. I found the book to be a bit cliched and skipped from the beginning to the ending so I could just find out who done it.

This book took a wee while to get going, particularly as the first part of the book largely described what it was like for the Charlotte Lucky (main character) to return to her rural home town in Florida to run her grandfathers whiskey company after working as a small time actor in Hollywood for a few years. The characters in the local town are interesting and the author does a great job of describing what life would be like living in a small US town where everyone knows each other’s business.

Following her Grandfathers arrest for the murder of her former high school boyfriend, Charlotte takes matters into her own hands and tries to find the killer, despite the local advising her against this. . It’s at this point the book really picks up and we get to see many twists and turns. Looking forward to any follow up books with Charlotte Lucky

When Charlotte Lucky’s grandad has a heart attack, she leaves her life as an actress in Los Angeles and heads home to Gett, Florida to help him recover and run the family Whiskey business. Coming home again Char, or Charms as her friends call her, fiends that ten years hasn’t changed the town and its residents much.

After dinner, Char heads out to check on a batch of whiskey and finds their head distiller floating in the cask, shot dead. When Grandad Jack is arrested for the murder, Charms begins digging around and trying to find the real murderer. When her childhood friend and nemesis, Brodie, tries to alternately help her and warn or off from investigating she’s torn between trusting him and suspecting him.

What secrets are the folks of Getts keeping and who would kill one of their own and why? Charms intends to find out and save Jack, even if it may cost her everything.

This was a great first book in a new series. The characters are well developed and the writing is done well. I could hear the accents and Southern twang come through the written word. Looking forward to more in this series.

I haven’t read a lot of mystery books, but this one has me rethinking that. I sat down with the plan to just read a few chapters and before I knew it hours had passed and I had read the entire book! I loved the characters, especially Charlotte. Her interactions with the townsfolk were amusing, although I did really feel bad for her the way some were holding a grudge over something from years ago. I 100% believed Charlotte as a character and immediately like her. Brodie and Charlotte have a great back-and-forth relationship and Danny is a great nemesis.

There is just the right balance of drama and comedy throughout the book to keep it from getting too serious or too silly. The mystery was also engaging and had me guessing until the end – with so many suspects and motives hopefully it will be the same for all readers! The twist at the end definitely has me excited to find out what happens next with Charlotte. I’m also hoping we learn more about what happened with Charlotte’s parents, I’m sensing a book all about that mystery. This is definitely a great first offering for the series.

The only negatives had to do with the author’s tendency to repeat the same things over and over again…how good looking Brodie is, what kind of car she drives, the commercial she filmed when she was in LA, etc.