"In$urance Blues" By Charlotte Stuart: Review/Giveaway

Review by Sharon Marchisello

Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win an ebook copy of the book and a link to purchase it. 

In$urance Blues is the third book in the John Smith mystery series by Charlotte Stuart. The first-person protagonist, John Smith, is a painfully average, unmarried, middle-aged mama’s boy who works as an insurance adjuster and has a name so ordinary that most people assume it must be an alias. He lives alone on a houseboat in the Seattle area. His cat, Wild Thing, hates him, although the animal is loving toward the neighbor’s young daughter and John’s kickass sidekick, Laney Drew.

When the story opens, John is consulting with an elderly client, Delia Flowers, about term-life insurance. He questions why her relatives want her to take out only a five-year policy instead of something for a longer period (suggesting that perhaps they expected to inherit the five-million-dollar death benefit sooner rather than later)

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Image Source Level Best Books

Not long after, Delia dies under mysterious circumstances, and, to his astonishment, John is named executor of her estate. Delia has left it up to John to decide how to divide up her assets. Her relatives are livid; they insist John is pulling some sort of con, even though he barely knew the woman and had trouble pronouncing her name. For a while, he’s even a suspect in her untimely death.

Nevertheless, John takes his assignment seriously and meets with each family member individually. He soon discovers most of them had little love for their aunt/sister, and few are grieving her death. Most are more concerned about who will inherit what; each believes his or her branch of the family tree is most deserving.

John and Laney spend the first night after the reading of the will guarding Delia’s house, and sure enough, three pairs of relatives break in during the night, intent on helping themselves to some of Delia’s possessions. After that, John’s police officer friend, Sergeant Bruno McGinty, arranges for security.

While John and Laney are in the house, they do some sleuthing and figure out that Delia was murdered. So, as John conducts his interviews with her beneficiaries, he also tries to determine if any of them had motive and opportunity to kill their disagreeable relative. John and Laney learn that some of the neighbors had grievances with Delia, especially since she was the lone holdout in a lucrative sale to a developer who wanted their land. Also, Delia had uncovered some shady dealings by the executives of a charity she had been donating to.

This was a well-plotted mystery with plenty of viable suspects, and John is a likable protagonist. I especially liked his friend Laney and their easy, platonic (for now) relationship. Although this is the third book in a series, and I have not read the others, I had no trouble immersing myself into John’s world and enjoying the story.

To enter to win an ebook copy of   In$urance Blues, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line "blues,” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen June 28, 2025. US residents only and you must be 18 or older to enter. If entering via comment please include your email address so we can contact you. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & mystery short stories in our mystery section in Kings River Life and in our mystery category here on KRL News & Reviews. And join our mystery Facebook group to keep up with everything mystery we post, and have a chance at some extra giveaways. And check out our new mystery podcast which features mystery short stories and first chapters read by local actors! 

You can click here to purchase this book.

Sharon Marchisello is the author of the DeeLo Myer cat rescue mysteries published by Level Best Books, starting with Trap, Neuter, Die (2024). Her other mysteries were published by Sunbury Press: Going Home (2014), Secrets of the Galapagos (2019), and Murder at Leisure Dreams – Galapagos (2025). She has also written a nonfiction book (Live Well, Grow Wealth - 2018), travel articles, and short stories. She earned a Master’s in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California and is active in Sisters in Crime. Sharon lives in Peachtree City, GA, where she does volunteer work for the Fayette Humane Society and the Fayette County Master Gardeners.

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases. KRL also receives free copies of most of the books that it reviews, that are provided in exchange for an honest review of the book.