Slightly Murderous Intent: A Southern California Mystery

Corrie Locke, the professional lawyer with a side hustle as a private investigator, and her colleagues, are getting busy attending to their hunger in Big Sam’s restaurant when a shooter unloads a bullet from his gun into Senior Deputy District Attorney Beckman’s back. The shooter then disappears into the night, and Corrie is convinced the shooter is on a mission to take him out, or at least someone from the D.A’s office. She assembles a team to capture the shooter before he puts a bullet into one of her colleagues again. The team, consisting of her computer-savvy boyfriend, Michael, and her best friend, Veera, along with some officers from the D.A’s office, is on the chase to capture the bad guy, and hopefully, his accomplices.

This is a potentially entertaining, light murder mystery with a sassy lead character. While the chase itself is something that every murder mystery enthusiast would be willing to look into, a significantly large percentage of the novel focuses on the characters chasing the suspect. It would have been better to give an inside look into the suspect’s thoughts and movements, especially how he planned to outsmart his chasers. That would cut the monotony of following their continuous conversations as Corrie and her team investigate all the possible angles. In the beginning, the reader is made to believe that the lead character is superb at unearthing leads, yet the ‘superb’ part does not show for most of the novel. Notwithstanding, everything gets exciting towards the end, giving “Slightly Murderous Intent” a thrilling conclusion.

JM Lareen