We meet Jude Dillane in Bar None, the first installment in Cathie Stoler‘s Murder on the Rocks series. Jude is co-owner of The Corner Lounge, She’s the smart and savvy narrator of this cozy mystery.

Stoler creates likeable characters who have all-too-human flaws and blind spots. Jude is a bright 34-year-old up-and-coming entrepreneur who can’t see that Roger, her current boyfriend is a predator. Sully, an ex-marine is tough and smart except for his choice of the women for whom he falls. Dean, The Corner Lounge’s premier bartender, is handsome and good at his job, but wants to be an actor. So, who knows how long he’ll work at The Corner Lounge. And Peter, the chef/co-owner of The Corner Lounge, creates all kinds of off-beat entrees for the restaurant. All of these characters are memorable and work well together.

When Ed, who works at the Big City Coop with Sully, indicates to him that things aren’t financially correct at the co-op, Sully and Jude begin to nose around. Especially when Ed was killed in Sully’s apartment. When George, another worker at the co-op, has a fatal car crash, things really heat up for Sully and Jude. Who shot Ed? Who pushed George’s car off the road? In fact, who smashed the front window of The Corner Lounge?

Stoler’s meticulous prose keeps the action going at a steady pace and the tension high. But there are three places where the prose is not at its best. For example, when Jude finds Ed-dead in Sully’s apartment, Stoler described the scene as: “Ed was there all right, and he was as dead as the empties from the bar at last call.” Really?

Another miss is when Jade depicts the view from a window in her apartment: “…gazing at the midnight blue sky dotted with stars. They were as bright and unfathomable as the ones that often filled my head.” How many stars can you see from the middle of a large city? Not that many, I think. Too much ambient light.

A third instance was Jude’s description of the traffic sounds she could hear from her apartment. “Like a long and lonely spiral of some long forgotten soulful jazz melody that no longer existed, it wafted up and into my mind.” This is a bit clichéd.

As a whole, I was pleased with, and entertained by, this initial offering in Stoler’s Murder on the Rocks series. Characters are believable and the plot moves along at an even pace.

I look forward to reading the second book in this series. For my review of Straight Up by Cathi Stoler, click here.

I received a free copy of Bar None from booksirens.com in exchange for an honest review.