It’s the first day of the Colorado Fiction Writers Association’s annual convention and CFWA president Arthur Upton is already up to his ears in complications—locked rooms, missing keys, disgruntled attendees, a threatened lawsuit and the worst snowstorm to hit the city in decades—and that’s before the dead body turns up, dressed in clothing purloined from each of the association’s board members.

With the police unable to respond in a timely fashion, due to the storm and competing catastrophes, it’s lucky one of Denver’s own is on hand to investigate. But Lakewood Police Detective Mitch Cameron, who’s just finished presenting a lecture on the A to Z of Investigating a Murder, is not feeling especially lucky. Not when it turns out the murdered man was killed with a weapon stolen from Mitch’s 'weapons of mayhem' display case; not when he learns his estranged son Brady is unexpectedly in attendance at the convention; and especially not when a second victim turns up and Brady is suddenly looking like a prime suspect!

An Unconventional Murder is an intriguing and enjoyable mystery nicely peppered with false clues, blind alleys and a large cast of familiar-seeming characters, almost all of whom had the means, motive and opportunity to commit the crimes. I especially liked all the 'writerly' details: the professional jealousies, the not so subtle digs at the publishing establishment, and all of the authors constantly seeing story ideas in every twist and turn of the case—but maybe that’s just me.

There were several personal threads left untied at the book’s conclusion and both Arthur (a former NYC cop) and Mitch seemed likely to make an excellent series sleuth—or better yet, a team! Leading me to suspect that Mr. Levinson is setting us up for future adventures. Or maybe that’s just my writer’s imagination at work?