Read time: 3 minutes
📱📖 Read on Kindle
📃 337 pages
⏱ Approx. 5 hours
🏷️ Publisher: Cosmic Tea Press
📅 Published: January 13, 2026
Book Blurb:
Rodrick Gray is not your average small-town PI. He can see emotions, living, breathing “soul gardens” that bloom around people, filled with strange creatures and emotional weather. When the wealthiest man in Two Lakes, Minnesota is found dead during a blizzard, suspicion falls on Rod’s childhood friend Clementine. To clear her name, Rod must confront the one soul garden he’s always avoided: a killer’s. As time runs out, Rod’s own emotions threaten to complicate the case in a mystery where feelings are as dangerous as secrets.
Let’s talk murder:
Although this novel isn’t marketed as noir, it radiates that deliciously gloomy, smoke-and-shadow energy that noir fans crave. Rodrick Gray, PI, fascinated me. A man who can literally see feelings. The premise alone is magnetic. Imagine walking through town and knowing exactly who’s simmering with rage or drowning in regret because their “soul garden” gives it away. It’s haunting and visual in a way that lingers.
But here’s the thing: despite the inventive premise, the story takes its sweet time getting anywhere. The emotional world-building is rich, sometimes too rich, and it often stalls the momentum of the mystery itself. The snowy Minnesota setting and emotional world-building were immersive, but I wanted sharper tension, more grit in the middle chapters.
Rod himself is a mixed bag. Interesting? Absolutely. Easy to root for? Not quite. His emotional sensitivity is thematically strong, but it also adds to the drag, especially when paired with a case that never fully crackles to life. Still, Maslakovic’s prose carries an eerie, moody charm, like fog rolling off a frozen lake. I admired what this book was trying to do more than I enjoyed actually reading it.
Would I recommend it?
If you love your mysteries with a surreal, emotional twist, That Murder Feeling might catch your fancy.
If You’re Looking for Something Similar
- The Midnight Library by Matt Haig — for emotional concepts handled with more narrative drive
- The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman — for cozy mystery lovers who want snappy pacing
- Still Life by Louise Penny — small-town mystery with introspection done right
- The City & the City by China Miéville — genre-bending crime with sharper edges
- Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey — emotional magic paired with a more propulsive mystery
Can You Feel That Murder Vibe?
Would you read a noir mystery with a fantasy twist, or do you like your detectives strictly grounded in reality?
Book Links:
Want to purchase this or any of your favorite books while supporting a local bookstore? Consider purchasing using the sites below. These sites work with independent local bookstore owners to fulfill your book orders.
#SupportLocal
- Indiebookstores.ca
- Bookshop.org
- Goodreads | Storybound | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover
- Follow Neve Maslakovic on her author page for latest on her books
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