Alibi by Accident by Kayleigh Suggett Narrator: Carlotta Brentan
Series: Verona Montero #1
Published by Recorded Books on March 10, 2026
Source: NetGalley
Genres: Mystery
Length: 10 hrs 10 mins
Pages: 296
Format: Audiobook
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F*ck It isn't just the name of her favorite smoothie—it's also Verona Montero's approach to murder investigations.
Verona Montero loves calling herself a private dick because it makes her sound like she’s in a 1940s detective movie. And she gets to say “dick” a lot. So when Miami—a walking Barbie with an emoji addiction—needs proof her billionaire husband Javier is cheating, Verona's all over it. Bonus: it means working with divorce lawyer Quentin, whose cologne gives her “crotch headaches.”
Then bam—Javier turns up dead in Greece, and Miami is staring down a murder charge. With her client’s billions at stake and a hefty retainer padding her account, Verona’s jetting off to Mykonos faster than you can say “Dark and Stormy.”
Between conning hotel staff and recruiting a drag queen to go undercover in a secret sex club, evidence suggests that the wrong person might be taking the fall. Now Verona’s facing her toughest moral dilemma yet: pursue justice for a dead predator, or let a killer with excellent taste in victims walk free.
I enjoyed Alibi by Accident and Verona is quite a main character. Keep that in mind because the book itself had some issues for me. She’s a private detective, or a private dick as she refers to herself in a kind of running joke, in Calgary. Her new client, Miami, knows her very rich husband is about to divorce her and wants Verona to get proof that he’s cheating on her so she can cash in on her share of the billions. Then, the husband ends up dead, murdered in a hotel in Greece, and Miami becomes a chief suspect, even though she was thousands of miles away, so Verona is off to Greece to find another focus for the police’s attention.
I was not prepared for the language in this one. I should have been, just look at the first word of the blurb, but there were too many f-words when they just weren’t needed. I was also not prepared for the amount of drooling Verona would do over her friend, divorce lawyer Quentin. Once again, if I had paid more attention to the blurb… It just felt like the whole thing was trying too hard.
The plot was a little disjointed. We start off with a prologue featuring a couple in Greece, but by the time we get back to it, I had almost forgotten they existed. We get a brief introduction to a drug dealer in a sex club, but he’s never a serious suspect. We get a lot of funny, slightly outrageous moments but they don’t fit smoothly together. The narrator does a great job with it all, though, and i definitely recommend the audio. She gives Verona a sharp, sarcastic personality that keeps the character engaging even when the plot goes a little off the rails. Her character voices are distinct, and her timing and tone make the whole thing fun.
The whodunnit made sense, but I felt like the wrap-up was overly long, especially considering I doubt we’ll see those particular characters again. #2 in the series is supposed to be out this summer, and I’ll definitely be picking it up. Hopefully some of the issues I had will be smoothed out and I’ll be more ready for the type of mystery and humor it has. I think it’ll be a perfect pool read – maybe with a dark and stormy, which I had never heard of before, but sounds yummy.
About Kayleigh Suggett
Kayleigh Suggett’s love of classic mysteries, British satire, and clever humour inspired Alibi by Accident, the first in her series of mysteries featuring private dick Verona Montero. She wishes that more female authors were writing in the irreverent style she enjoys, so she decided to become one herself.
With a background in customer service and business administration, she draws on her experience of the oddities of human behaviour to craft distinctly zany characters, fast-paced banter, and hilarious situations.
When she’s not coming up with a perfectly snide simile to add to her books she’s a wedding singer, choir nerd, mountain-gazer, and NYT crossword frustrated solver. She lives in Calgary, AB with her husband and son.
She is a member of the Crime Writers of Canada.
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