Amanda Bell Brown is celebrating her thirty-fifth birthday by having dinner out with her sister, Carly, who is a medical examiner. Carly gets a call to go to a crime scene and has to take Amanda, a forensic psychologist, with her. The investigation interests her and Jazz Brown, the detective in charge, is one fine man who also interests her. She looks over the scene and offers some suggestions to Jazz, who wants nothing more than a date with her. During the course of the investigation, they manage to get together, but both have trust issues with the opposite sex, as well as remembered pain from past relationships. In addition, Jazz, who was previously married, has religious beliefs which conflict with becoming involved with another woman.

MURDER, MAYHEM, AND A FINE MAN by Claudia Mair Burney, also explores cults and the deviousness involved. Amanda has first hand knowledge with cults and uses it to help solve the murder. Her only problem is, she gets very close to the cult responsible for the mayhem. Will she survive? And if she does, will she and Jazz be able to bury their old pain and move on?

Claudia Mair Burney has written a wonderful mystery that keeps you guessing about everything right up to that very last page. It is well written and the characters are so well-developed I could actually feel their emotions. The novel brought out love, hate, religion, as well as cults and I found myself reacting to the emotions of the characters. I alternately wanted to slap them, rejoice with them and urge them to move on with their lives. It is a novel that is extremely hard to put down.

Reviewed by alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers