Skye has inherited a falling down farmhouse and has hired contractor Beau Hamilton to fix the place up. While he came with good recommendations, and he’s a major hunk, Beau is actually a horrible contractor. Skye’s house is in a state of disrepair, between missing windows, a hole in the roof, not to mention that the idiot allowed her precious cat, Bingo, to escape the house. The poor thing has been missing for days!

Determined to confront and fire Beau she arrives home from work only to discover him unconscious and bleeding in a boat tied up in the river behind her house. She rescues him after the boat breaks free, but given that he was shot in the head, Beau is dead on arrival at the hospital. Sure the man was a horrible contractor, but who hated him enough to kill him? One thing is for sure, Skye better find out soon because the county sheriff seems determined to pin this murder on her.

The mystery gets off to a rocky start given that the reader never gets to know Beau alive. Our first introduction to him is as a bleeding corpse, which makes it hard to muster up any emotional investment in his death. Likewise, the murder takes a back seat for a good portion of the first half between Skye’s recent break-up with her cheating boyfriend, her mother’s meddling, her aborted home repairs, her brother’s mysterious new girlfriend he’s hiding from everybody, and Skye’s budding romance with chief of police, Wally Boyd.

From what this reviewer could gather, the Wally/Skye chemistry has been simmering since the beginning of the series, so fans should be pleased that their relationship takes a step forward in this installment. Unfortunately, between Skye’s break-up with previous boyfriend, Simon (she suspects he was cheating on her but she never gave him a chance to explain) and her mother’s meddling because dang, don’t you know that Simon is perfect husband material; it takes a lot of focus off the mystery. Fans will likely not care, but newcomers will likely become frustrated waiting for the author to roll around to the dead body.

The resolution to the mystery isn’t bad, although the bad guy isn’t much a stretch. Perhaps if more focus had been placed on it, the suspects, and possible motives instead of Skye’s love life, it would have been more of a brainteaser. Such as it is though, while Murder of a Real Bad Boy is pleasant fare and an easy way to kill an afternoon, it’s likely to only muster some excitement among those who are already fans of Swanson’s series.

--Wendy Crutcher