Libby Brown, the heroine of Cowboy Trouble, decides to make a clean break when everything in her old life goes pear shaped. So she leaves her job as a crime reporter in Atlanta and buys a chicken ranch in Lackaduck, Wyoming. Why? Seems as though she had a Fisher Price toy farm when she was just a tot and has always wanted to be a farmer.

As Libby is trying to make her dilapidated place look a bit better, up drives her next door neighbor Luke Rawlins. Luke is a handsome, sexy cowboy and seems to be a really nice guy, but having been burned by a cheating boyfriend, Libby is determined to stick to her guns and not get involved in a new relationship. However, she isn’t averse to a spot of dinner and she and Luke take off to the local bar/diner where Libby gets to know some of the locals and discovers that there’s an unsolved murder in Lackaduck’s past.

Della McCarthy was only seventeen, pretty and a bit wild. One day she simply up and disappeared leaving no trace behind. The sheriff, Cash McIntyre has kept the case open, but the trail is as cold as a Wyoming winter. Libby may be a chicken farmer now, but she still has her old investigative instincts and she begins to snoop into Della’s past. Naturally, someone doesn’t like what she’s doing and begins to send her some not so subtle messages to butt out. Naturally, she keeps on with the investigation and naturally she solves the case – not without some danger to her person.

There’s a nice story in Cowboy Trouble, and I think it would have made a pretty good series romance, but I had way too many problems with the book as it is to enjoy it. Luke never came alive as a character. Oh, he was nice and decent and good to his mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s, but he was bland as all get out. Libby came off as a silly woman who acted first and then thought about things. I simply couldn’t believe that she’d make a success at raising chickens. For instance, when she decides to get a dog, she ends up with five Jack Russell terriers and has to spend considerable energy keeping them away from the chickens. Libby isn’t a total ditz, but I didn’t feel she was going to be a successful farmer.

Cash, the sheriff, doesn’t seem to spend much time investigating crimes. When Libby’s truck is vandalized and her home broken into, Cash just blows it off. And she accepts his lame explanation. Where’s the plucky investigative reporter?

The book is written in a jagged and head hopping style which gave me a bit of a headache – that and the nebulous characters did not make for a pleasant reading experience. Just before I read this book, I had just finished reading a memoir about a woman who ran a chicken ranch – Betty MacDonald’s The Egg and I. Now that was a delightful, charming book. I suggest you read it and give Cowboy Trouble a pass.