it's a small world after all . . . for solving a murder

Contractor Shannon Hammer is about to take on a new job, taking the historic Lighthouse Church and turning it into an art museum. There will be many challenges to the job, from restoring some of the wood surfaces to finding ways to light the art while filtering the natural sunshine coming through the gorgeous stained glass windows. Shannon has brought together a team of experts and artisans to help her make over this church, including poaching a lighting director from her sister Chloe’s makeover television show. But that’s what it will take to make this job as successful as some of her past projects.

Shannon and her team assemble at the church their first day to walk through the space and start to make notes on what needs to be done. She had been in the church already, walking through with the new director of the museum, Madeline. But for much of Shannon’s team, it will be their first time seeing the inside of the church. Madeline takes them through the narthex to the nave and talk a little about how they want to set it up as a lobby, for the guests coming in, and a small gift shop to the side. She takes them through the sanctuary, including some ideas for the pews, and on to the altar.

Beyond the altar is the sacristy and several small rooms named for their exquisite stained glass windows. These small rooms would be ideal for small collections of art, but when Shannon tries to open the door of the Blue Iris Chapel. When she’s finally able to force it open, she discovers Madeline’s assistant. But the woman had clearly just been killed. Shannon backs out of the room, to preserve as much evidence as possible for the police and she waits for them to arrive.

Waiting for the police to arrive, everyone else seems to appear at the church also. There’s Reverend Roy and his wife Lavinia, who are mostly done moving everything out of this church to their new location. There is Flora, who provides flowers at the church and is the aunt to the lighting expert Shannon hired from her sister’s show. And there is the secretary from the church and their longtime handyman. There is no shortage of potential suspects, but Shannon has no idea why anyone would have killed Madeline’s assistant.

As Shannon spends the next few days unable to get into the church (the police have it cordoned off), so she checks on her other jobs and talks to her friends. It turns out that most everyone knows someone involved in the case and can help out by asking some questions. But the more Shannon learns about everyone involved, the more confused she is about who would murder someone in a church. How will she be able to figure out who the killer is, and will she be able to piece it together before someone else ends up dead?

Dressed to Drill is the tenth book in Kate Carlisle’s Fixer-Upper Mysteries. This one has a lot of fun elements to it, from a red carpet movie premiere to a beautiful historic Victorian church. I loved these locations and thought they added a lot of fun and engagement to this story. The secrets behind the crimes were challenging to suss out, so this one was not easy to solve.

But as much as I loved the church setting for this one, I did find that some of the information we got about the church and the reverend were a little confusing. There was no mention of what religion or denomination the church was, so that was a little muddy for me, and that uncertainty colored the story for me, as I am someone who grew up with religion. Readers who didn’t grow up in church may not have that ambivalence.

That being said, I still really enjoy these books and I love spending time with these characters. Shannon is strong and smart, and her boyfriend Mac adds a lot of fun surprises, and these books are always well-written and strongly plotted. If you’re a fan of home makeover shows, then you should definitely give these Fixer-Upper Mysteries a try.

Egalleys for Dressed to Drill were provided by Berkley Publishing Group through NetGalley, with many thanks.