It’s fall in North Carolina, and Misty Murphy, owner of the Mountaintop Lodge in Beech Mountain is ready for her guest to take advantage of the beautiful weather to see the leaves changing on the trees all around them. The Dangerous Curves, a motorcycle club of 20 women, has rented all her rooms for a week, ready to ride their bikes through the mountains for hikes, shopping, and lots of fun.
Misty is happy to have attracted so much business to her small lodge in her first year, and when the women start showing up, their bikes rumbling into the parking lot, she is happy to get to meet these adventurous women and to find out more about the group. There are the sisters Dahlia and Daisy, Bessie with her terrier Shotgun riding in the sidecar, and Erika who recklessly introduced herself by doing a wheelie in the parking lot. Reyna is the leader of the group, and Gerri came up at the end, driving a GMC Yukon with a trailer that has her beloved Harley Davidson in it.
Misty thinks that most of these women are amazing, although she does have some misgivings. Erika seems reckless, and she seems to take unnecessary risks and resent the older women who try to rein her in. Katie doesn’t have an ID when she checks in, opting to pay cash up front for her week’s stay. She said she’d lost her wallet, but Misty also noticed that her hair looked like it had been recently dyed. Could she be escaping from a dangerous ex? And Lexi was running late, arriving after all the rest of the Curves. She explained to Misty by saying that she’d been in court, and Misty had been taken aback. But then she went on to say that she had gotten a divorce, and she was finally free of her husband Todd.
The first day the Dangerous Curves were there, they spent the day riding and hiking while Misty stayed back at the lodge, cleaning and taking care of the usual administrative tasks with her assistant Brynn. She enjoyed a quiet dinner with Yeti, her cat, before going to sleep. It had taken Yeti some time to recover from the loud noise of the motorcycles, and she had been awakened by some strange noises out back. But it wasn’t anything a good nap on a comfortable pillow couldn’t fix.
The next day, the Curves have some bad luck, as two of the women faced challenges on their ride. Katie had slipped on a wet rock and hurt her wrist, and Lexi’s bike had been taken, with her helmet still attached to it. It turns out that since it had been registered in her ex-husband’s name, he had told law enforcement it had been stolen, and the police had confiscated it. Meanwhile, Gerri had come back to the lodge to find her recently deceased husband’s ex-wife Andrea, along with her son Sterling and his wife Mariah, waiting for her. Gerri was the one controlling the trust fund for Sterling, Mariah, and their kids, and they are wanting to take some money from it. She’s upset with them for showing up on her vacation, and Misty ends up sending them away from her lodge.
The women were concerned that a late day storm would last until the next morning, cancelling their ride the next day. Instead, they awake to beautiful weather and even invite Misty and Brynn along on their ride for the day. They decide to play hooky and go along for the ride. But when they all get to their stop and Gerri is missing, they know something has to be wrong. Retracing their steps, Misty and Brynn finally find her. Her motorcycle had left the road, and she had slammed hard into a tree. Her helmet hadn’t been enough to save her, and when Misty sees some silver paint on Gerri’s back fender, she starts to wonder if someone had helped her.
As Misty tries to figure out who might have had a reason to hurt Gerri, she becomes suspicious of the other women in the motorcycle club as well as strangers who she had seen on the road. But with each step she gets closer to a killer, she gets closer to being the next one driven to danger.
A Trip with Trouble is the second in Diane Kelly’s engaging Mountain Lodge Mystery series. These stories set in the Appalachian Mountains combine a relaxing setting with the high stakes of solving murders. Misty and her friends all chip in to help, and to try to keep her out of danger, while Yeti tends to solve the case. Told in alternating chapters between Misty’s point of view and Yeti’s, these mysteries showcase strong characters in a beautiful setting with an intriguing plot.
I enjoyed A Trip with Trouble. I loved the story with the women’s motorcycle club, and I thought the mix of characters brought a lot of texture. There were several red herrings that kept me guessing, and plenty of fun pets to bring smiles. When I was first reading the chapters in Yeti’s point of view, I wasn’t sure that I liked it, but I have to admit it grew on me. Yeti is a good cat, and it’s fun to see what’s going on with her. This is a solid book in a solid series, and it’s fun for a fall weekend, with a nice mug of hot cider nearby.
Egalleys for A Trip with Trouble were provided by St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley, with many thanks.
