In Murder Can Mess Up Your Masterpiece, Celeste Cabot, with her Chihuahua Van Gogh, is embarking on a new life as a freelance artist. Living in her tiny bright pink trailer, Celeste has good sales at her first craft fair until she finds the organizer murdered and she is the number one suspect.
Murder Can Mess Up Your Masterpiece but so can her first sales return. The customer says the painting is haunted. Celeste thinks that’s absurd until she sees the ghostly Victorian women from the painting appear that night in her trailer. It couldn’t be her imagination if Van Gogh also saw it too, right?
Celeste has the perfect amount of chutzpah without stupidly stumbling into dumb situations. Handsome potential love interest Caleb is a good match for her—provided he is not the killer. They both are dog people and artists after all. I also enjoyed the ghostly elements. It was fun to have two mysteries to solve. However, I was disappointed that the three female suspects within the fair—Ruth, Shar, and Carly—were not fully fleshed out so I didn’t really care if one of them was the murderer. In addition, the travel trailer tips beginning each chapter were kind of corny. I also felt the mystery was too easy to solve. 3 stars.
Thanks to Kensington Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.