What could be more exciting than studying color schemes for the renovation of an old-time mom-and-pop Florida restaurant? You can probably think of two or three or a hundred more thrilling ways to spend your time, but this is really fun for me.

I’m Rowena Summerfield, Ro to friends. I’m co-owner of Nailed It Home Renos along with Valerie Kowalski, who’s also my daughter. This is a second career for both of us. I’m a former homicide detective and she used to be a bank loan manager. I thought my days investigating murders ended when the car my partner and I were riding in during a high speed chase flipped over and I wound up in the hospital for weeks. Unable to do extended field work the rest of my career, I chose early retirement and went back to school to learn interior design. Val needed a change after divorcing her philandering husband. So we teamed up to tackle the rehab of older homes. Some might call us flippers. I prefer renovators.

My typical day involves on-site measuring, sketching current floor plans and imagining new layouts, ordering materials and supplies and frequent checking in with my daughter and the crew to assure they’re bringing my design plans to life as I intended. Val handles the logistical details on the demolition and construction side as well as the various permits and licenses.

I’m typically home by early evening in my half of the duplex Val and I own in time to feed my watchcat, Jason, an adopted male with black fur and a white bib and face, before he decides I’ve been gone too long and goes into major pout mode. Jason is the real head of household, or at least he thinks so.

Recently, I’ve been seeing Chuck Dawson, local deli owner, former football star and super hunk. He likes to drop by with food offerings to excuse his unannounced visits. I’m taking it slower than he’d like, because having a man in my life again requires some adjustment. I’ve been pretty independent since my husband, Ben, succumbed to cancer thirteen years ago. Chuck also owns the restaurant he convinced us to refurbish, our current project. Turns out, Chuck is a micromanager, so part of my day is spent responding to or resisting his latest change to the original plans. Never again, I tell myself, although he’s already talking about adding a wine bar to the existing building, and I don’t want that job to go to another contractor.

Okay, that’s my “typical” day. Except not all my days go this way. As it turns out, I’m not done investigating murders. My former homicide partner, Hercules Morgan, Herc, keeps recruiting me as a special investigative consultant to the Shasta, Florida police department when his current partner is unavailable.

When murder is involved, it’s imperative to gather the evidence as soon as possible before the trail goes cold. Given that, when a case comes up, my design responsibilities get put on hold or are picked up by Val. Herc and I work well together. While he thrives on facts, I’m the conceptual one who knits together a theory about our killer.

One case involved the murder of a former madam. Ironically, just before she was killed, Val bought the woman’s house, her brothel, for our next reno project. The main suspects were her four “associates,” each, including her daughter, with a reason for offing the old gal. Although we did get the killer, the capture sent both Herc and me to the hospital.

In another case, the building inspector who’d turned down our building permit application got himself run over in the parking lot where he worked. We weren’t the only ones he’d harassed; the guy had a long list of dissatisfied clients as well as disaffected coworkers. Before we caught that killer, Herc and I nearly froze in a cooling closet for furs.

The victim in our most recent case died while wearing drywall stilts. The most difficult part of that one was figuring out why someone who had no experience with home construction would break into a reno job at night and attempt to wear those things. Have you ever seen those contraptions? They’re killers on their own.

Discovering the identity of murderers and arresting them are two different things. Some bad guys (and women) make it easy for us. Once they figure out we’ve got their number, they cave. But others aren’t about to confess willingly, even when we lay out our airtight case against them. We’re trained to counteract these standoffs, but sometimes they get the draw on us. We have to think fast, guard our weapon and duck. Even those responses sometimes fail, and we’re forced to improvise and rely on the rest of our team to bring them in.

Good thing these cases pop up only so often. In between, it’s back to my alternative typical days. Studying those color schemes provides a refreshing breather.

Death by Drywall, A Nailed It Home Reno Mystery #3
Genre: Cozy
Release: March 2022
Purchase Link

Renovating a restaurant is hard enough. Renovating it for your boyfriend who thinks his million-dollar smile will make up for his ever-changing whims is even harder. But running the job when a woman is murdered in a house your colleague is renovating? It’s almost more than Rowena Summerfield can handle—especially when she’s once again pulled into her old role of homicide detective to find the killer.

Ro dives in to clear her friend so she can go back to her real job, especially since the rocky renovation threatens to wreck her relationship with charming Chuck. But this mystery is anything but straightforward. The victim wore drywall stilts. Her nearest relatives are either uncooperative or dead. And everybody’s lying to Ro and her old partner, Herc.

With support from her daughter and her finicky cat, Jason, Ro puts her new love and young company on the line to crack the case—even when the only solution seems to be a dangerous plot to entrap the murderer before the devious killer eliminates them.

About the author
Barbara Barrett writes both the Nailed It Home Reno Mysteries and Mah Jongg Mystery series. She has also written eleven contemporary romance novels and two novellas. You can learn more about her on her website at barbarabarrettbooks.com.

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