Scene of the Climb

Scene of the Climb by Kate Dyer-Seeley is a cute cozy mystery.  It is the first book in A Pacific Northwest Mystery series.  Mary Margaret Reed (Meg) has just finished college.  She is a journalism major living in Portland, Oregon with a penchant for pink.  Unfortunately for Meg, newspapers and magazines are not doing well.  The O (the newspaper that she wanted to work for) has closed its doors.  Meg is staying with her best friend, Jill Pettygrove in her apartment in The Pearl (an expensive area of Portland) while looking for a job.  Meg goes out to get coffee (forgetting to brush her teeth and hair) and meets Greg Dixon.  Greg is the editor-in-chief of Northwest Extreme magazine.  Greg has an open position and offers it to Meg.  When asked about her outdoor activities (hiking, biking, skiing, etc.), Meg decides to embellish (she can walk and she sort of went skiing once). 

Meg’s first assignment big assignment is a feature on Race the States.  It is a show filming contestants doing extreme activities.  The winner will receive $1,000,000.  The last leg of the race is taking place in Portland, Oregon.  Unfortunately for Meg, it involves a hike up a mountain.  Meg manages to the first stopping point (she wore boots that she did not break in before the hike), but then fakes a fall in order to avoid having to go onto the summit.  While examining her injuries, Meg sees Lenny swan dive off the mountain.

Meg is sure that it is murder and sets out to investigate (despite her boss and the sheriff telling her to stay out of it).  Meg ends up in trouble and needs to be rescued from the killer.

Scene of the Climb is a charming cozy mystery with fun characters, but the mystery was simple to solve.  If you are good at solving mysteries, you should be able to figure it out before the body enters rigor mortis.  I give Scene of the Climb 4 out of 5 stars.  

Thank you for reading my review!  The next book in the series is Slayed by the Slopes and it will be out on March 31, 2015!  I will be posting my review soon.  Happy Reading!

Kris