Tag Archives: cozy mystery

In the Time of Five Pumpkins, by Alexander McCall Smith*****

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In the Time of Five Pumpkins is the 26th installment of the #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency mysteries by Alexander McCall Smith. This is hands down my favorite cozy series, and it may very well be my favorite series, period. Precious Ramotswe is our chief protagonist and owner of the business, and her easy-going manner with others and her capacity to smooth over a difficult situation are a breath of fresh air. Of course, Precious is fictional, but she feels real to me. I feel as if I have known her for decades, which in the literary sense, I have. My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

As with all of my best loved, long-running mystery series, the joy of reading is only partly to do with the mystery. In fact, I almost think Smith could forget to include a mystery and I might take a good long while to notice; I enjoy greeting the continuing characters that I haven’t seen in some time. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who is married to Precious and runs a garage in the same building where Precious has her office; Mma Potokwane, Precious’s “traditionally built” best friend, who runs an orphanage and always has fruitcake ready when Precious visits; Charlie, the formerly bumbling mechanic who is shaping up nicely as a part time detective trainee; and of course, Mma Makutsi:

Employees who leave it to their employers to promote them may have a long time to wait, but this was not the fate of Mma Makutsi. She had somehow managed to promote herself, first to the role of senior secretary, then without discussing the matter with Mma Ramotswe, to assistant detective, associate detective, associate director, co-director and so on, to the position she had most recently chosen for herself—executive president for development. This was a novel description and had rather puzzled Mma Ramotswe.

Passages such as this one leave me gasping! How many of us, in a similar situation, would allow someone that we had hired to give herself such exalted titles? It’s both bizarre and preposterous. But there’s never a question of salary; no matter what she calls herself, Mma Makutsi makes the same money as before, and no one here is making very much.

The stories usually have more than one thread, and so it is with this one. A woman arrives from the States to meet someone that turned up in her ancestry search, and the agency is hired to help her find them. At the same time, another case involving marital problems, though not the usual sort, is presented. And a third thread has to do with a shady character that has befriended Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. Before all is said and done, Charlie has a “Clovis Anderson moment,” which has been a long time coming, and J.L.B. Matekoni saves his creepy new friend from a “government crocodile.”

This is a series that never gets old, and perhaps because the excitement is ramped up just a tick in this one—not too much, we do want to keep it cozy, after all—it may be my favorite so far. Highly recommended to all that love the genre.

Murder in an English Garden, by Carlene O’Connor***-****

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Murder in an Irish Garden is the eleventh in the Irish Village mystery series by Carlene O’Connor, but I haven’t read any of the earlier books. My thanks go to Kensington Books, RB Media, and NetGalley for the review copies; this book is for sale now.

I was drawn to this book because it features three of my interests: mysteries, Ireland, and gardening. On the downside, it’s definitely a cozy mystery, and I am generally not a fan of cozies, except for the ones that have a bit of an edge, the sort that make true cozy readers complain. I mention the latter because for me, this felt too sedate; on the other hand, true cozy fans may find it is just about right for them.

The premise is that the annual gardening contest, which features a significant cash prize and a great deal of prestige, is about to take place. The village’s most serious gardeners have spent considerable time, effort, and money preparing their gardens for the event, but then one of the displays turns out to have a corpse inside it; the body is that of an entrant who isn’t from the village, an outsider who’s using the competition as a stepping stone to get her admitted to another contest that has a massive cash prize. Cassidy Ryan, the outsider, has been murdered. Village cops Siobhan and Macdara, who are a married couple, are tasked with solving the crime.

As the story opens, we find the two cops—called garda—in a marital dispute, and our protagonist, Siobhan, has an internal monologue that switches back and forth between murder and her pique at Macdara. I felt the latter was overdone, but I also wonder if I had read some of the earlier books, whether I would be more invested in their romance. Of course, they eventually resolve their dispute, and they crack the case.

I was lucky enough to have access to both the digital and audio versions. This proved to be even more helpful than usual, as I was able to hear the story through the delightful Irish brogue of reader Caroline Lennon, and at the same time, I learned the pronunciation of a few common Irish names that I’d only seen in print until now. Between these things and the fact that the narrative is linear and lends itself to the audio format so beautifully, I recommend that interested readers select either the audio alone, or a combination of both. I read multiple books at a time, and because it is easily followed, it’s the story I have chosen to hear while driving.

The characters felt poorly developed to me, with external qualities—this gardener loves goats, that gardener is formal and rather picky—serving as the only development that I found. I would have liked to see some dynamics, and some agreeable qualities for the deceased included. There was almost nothing about gardening, which would have been fine, had there been character development, but alas.  For this reason, I rate the digital version 3 stars, but for the reasons mentioned earlier, the audio version is elevated to 4 stars.

The Damages, by Shelley Costa****

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Shelley Costa, one of my favorite cozy mystery and humor writers, gave us No Mistaking Death, a new series introducing amateur sleuth Marian Warner in 2023. Here she is back with the second in the series, The Damages. My thanks go to the author, NetGalley, and Level Best Books for the review copies. This book is for sale now.

Marian was confused and hurting when last we saw her; that’s what happens when a normal person shoots someone. She blew out of Carthage, Ohio like the devil was on her tail at the end of the first mystery, but now she’s back, answering the call of a kid who wants her to find his missing sister, Beth. Beth is a courier for a medical testing company, ferrying blood samples from point A to point B. She’s well liked, lives a stable existence, and has told nobody of travel plans, but despite the fact that Carthage is a dinky little town, nobody has seen her lately.

It doesn’t look good.

Marian’s investigation dovetails with a big trial that’s taking place. A local obstetrician is being sued for millions by a couple whose baby he delivered. She has Cerebral Palsy, will never walk, talk, or lead a normal life. The medical malpractice suit is a money grab, plain and simple; if it is successful, Dr. Barish won’t be able to practice anymore. His premiums are already killing him. Is he the reason that Courtney Clemm is in such dire condition? Because she certainly is. It’s hard to look away.

This is a complex tale with a lot of twists and turns, but it’s not the mystery that keeps me engaged, it’s the protagonist. Given that this is just book 2 of a series, Marian is unusually well developed and immensely engaging. Add to this Costa’s trademark wordsmithery, her wry observations and quirky figurative language, and the case is almost beside the point. I’m here for Marian. And that’s good, because—for reasons I cannot understand myself—the pacing here is a little slow in places, though it ramps up to an arresting climax and powerful ending.

All told, this is a well-crafted novel, and I look forward immensely to book 3 in the series. Recommended to all that love a good cozy.

Summers at the Saint, by Mary Kay Andrews****

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Summers at the Saint is the latest novel by veteran author Mary Kay Andrews. I am not usually a fan of what I think of as light and fluffy books, but over the last couple of years, I’ve developed an appreciation for this author’s work. This story centers on a fashionable beach resort hotel and those that run it, with the focus primarily on the women. It’s a good summer read—not a bad choice to take to the beach, actually. My thanks go to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and St. Martin’s Press for the invitation to read and review. This book will be available to the public May 7, 2024.

Our protagonist is Traci Eddings, the young widow of Hoke Eddings, heir to the Saint Cecilia resort. Traci has inherited part of the business from her late husband, but there is a power struggle in play as the book opens. The old man is dying, and the surviving heirs are scheming. The business seems to be on the rocks, or near to it, and Traci can’t figure out why. She makes several smart changes, hires good people, and yet…

We have interesting side characters. Parrish is Traci’s niece, whom she persuades to postpone her studies for one more summer as Traci implements the changes that are needed. We have the new cook, Felice, as well as Livvy, a capable young woman that Traci hires away from the diner where she is waiting tables; and we have Livvy’s mother Shannon, who used to be Traci’s best friend. Shannon completely dumped Traci many years ago, leaving Traci bewildered and hurt; she still feels that way. Lastly we have Whelan, who is working at the Saint as a pretext while he tries to unravel the circumstances that led to the death of his younger brother at the resort’s pool many years ago.

The book’s strongest aspect is the side characters, particularly Felice, Shannon and Livvy. Other characters are one dimensional, either entirely good or entirely awful. Rather, this is a plot based book. There are a great many moving parts, with a blend of genres that include romance, mystery, beach reads, women’s fiction, and contemporary family drama. It is in weaving the many pieces of this story that Andrews’s experience shines through. If there is a plot element that conflicts with another, or that is simply illogical, I didn’t spot it. At the end, everything and everyone is accounted for; in fact, I might have preferred not to have every single aspect resolved, and every positive character quite so perfectly happy. I seldom argue in favor of ambiguity, but in this case, it wouldn’t hurt.

I was fortunate enough to receive both the Kindle and audio versions, and once more, Kathleen McInerney does a fine job of narration with all of the women characters and the internal monologue. Her voice isn’t deep enough to voice the men’s characters well, and I suggest adding a second, male narrator next time around.

The story held my attention quite nicely as I did my morning bike ride, and I recommend it to Andrews’s loyal readers, and to those that enjoy a good beach read.

Murder Off the Books, by Tamara Berry*****

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“There came a time in every crime solver’s life when they wanted to stop getting stuffed in the backs of vans and facing down danger at every turn.”

My thanks go to Poisoned Pen Press and Net Galley for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Tess Harrow lives with her daughter, Gertrude, in a tiny hamlet in Washington State. She’s taken the hardware store she inherited and had it redone, and so now it’s her bookstore. But the locals are a bit leery of Tess; everywhere she turns, somebody drops dead. To reassure them that she is normal and trustworthy, she’s throwing a gala bookstore opening; wine, cheese, books, and…a corpse.

Well, heck.

But the good news is, Tess is a pretty decent sleuth. She’d be a lot better if she knew when to shut up, though:

“His words became a snarled growl. ‘Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?’ Everyone, all the time—and she wasn’t about to stop now.”

This book, and this series, contains exactly what I like to see in a cozy mystery: colorful characters, an easily followed plot, and a good deal of whimsy.

Because I was running late, I checked out the audio version of this story from Seattle Bibliocommons. I like the reader, and the narrative is easy to follow, even for a text-oriented reviewer like me. I highly recommend this book in whatever format is your favorite.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Colleen Cambridge****

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This charming cozy mystery, set in Paris during the postwar years, had me at hello. Tabitha is an American expat, and her best friend, Julia Child, is teaching her how to cook. But one evening, during one of the Childs’s many soirees, a woman is murdered…and the knife in question came from Julia’s kitchen!  To make matters even worse, the victim was carrying a card with Tabitha’s name and address on it when she was found. For some young women, this would be a wakeup call, and the morning would see them on the next available plane to Detroit; but Tabitha is made of sterner and more curious stuff, and so she begins snooping.  

My thanks go to Net Galley and Kensington Books for the review copy; this book is for sale now.

To cope with the horror of the previous night’s events, Julia is roasting a ham.  “I just had to take my mind off everything. Can you even believe it, Tabs? Someone murdered a woman in this building—with my knife! That means they had to have been in my kitchen! This kitchen!”

Like many an amateur sleuth in other mysteries, Tabitha begins poking around. Sometimes she has smart ideas, and at other times she is breathtakingly dense, but there is never a time that I am thinking about the author rather than the protagonist, and that means that I believe the character. There are some familiar tropes and the occasional cliche: “She knew too much!” But it never becomes a problem, possibly because this is a novel that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Now and then the author breaks down the fifth wall, or nearly so. For example, Tabitha tells us that she knows what to do because she has read plenty of Nancy Drew mysteries.

The solution to this whodunit is fairly transparent, and I am able to predict the solution, along with the conclusion of the additional thread of incipient romance early in the book, but the whole thing is so adorable that I never become annoyed. “Just like an Agatha Christie novel—all the questions answered at the end, and the villain is caught, and everyone else is happy.”

Because I had fallen behind, I supplemented my review copy with the audio version, obtained from Seattle Bibliocommons, and narrator Polly Lee does a brilliant imitation of Julia Child! In fact, all of the passages involving Julia are brilliant, and that is my favorite aspect of this story.

Sometimes an author manages to step on multiple pet peeves of mine, and yet I emerge pleasantly entertained anyway, and that’s what has happened here. This is light reading, but it isn’t insipid. I look forward to reading the next in this lovely new series. Recommended to cozy readers.

Buried in a Good Book, by Tamara Berry****-*****

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4.5 rounded upward.

I’ve been enjoying Berry’s Eleanor Wilde series, which I read and reviewed from the first book forward; when I found this one, Buried in a Good Book, the start of a brand new series, I was all in. My thanks go to Net Galley and Poisoned Pen Press for the review copy.

I’m a bit skeptical of novels that feature the words book, library, reading, bookstore and such because obviously, potential buyers are likely to get all warm and fuzzy-feeling just seeing the title. It’s a soft landing, that’s for sure, marketing books and book-related topics to booklovers; and then I wonder if the author is just too lazy to take on something more challenging. But every time Berry embraces the obvious, it turns out to be with her tongue planted firmly in her cheek, and by the end of the book I am laughing out loud. That holds true for this one as well.

Tess Harrow is newly divorced, and her adolescent daughter, Gertrude is heartbroken, because her father has more or less ghosted on her. When an elderly relative dies and leaves his cabin and his hardware store to Tess, it seems like an omen. She’ll get her girl out of Seattle and the heartbreak she’s experienced there; get off the grid, more or less, and enjoy Nature. Yikes.

Be careful what you wish for!

The day is nearly over when they pull up to the cabin, a fixer if ever there was one; Tess knew it might be rugged, but she didn’t know that the lovely little pond out back would be fully stocked with body parts, too. And whereas some might be daunted by such an occurrence, she looks at all of it as excellent material for her next bestselling thriller.

This novel is different from the Ellie Wilde mysteries in that we are more than half into it before the author moves in for the laughs. Just as I conclude that this time Berry is playing it straight, something happens—no, I will NOT tell you what—and I am guffawing and snorting, neither of which is becoming while one is eating lunch, but it simply cannot be helped. Berry is a sly one, all right. My notes say, “I never knew metacognition could be so damn funny.”

I enjoy everything she does here, and the fact that it’s set in my own stomping grounds of Washington State makes me love it all the better. Recommended to any reader that is ready for a good story and a good laugh. It’s for sale now.

Fifty-Four Pigs, by Philipp Schott***-****

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3.75 stars, rounded upward.

Fifty-Four Pigs is the first in the Dr. Bannerman vet mystery series, set in a tiny town in Manitoba, Canada. My thanks go to Net Galley and ECW for the audio review copy. This book is for sale now.

Peter Bannerman is a quirky guy, a rural veterinarian with particular tastes and a fierce loyalty to his friends. When his good buddy Tom’s barn is torched in the middle of the night, killing all 54 of his pigs and leaving behind a mysterious human corpse, the Mounties want to question him, but he’s nowhere to be found. Has Tom been killed? Kidnapped? Perhaps he’s on the run, panic-stricken. Peter is eager to try out his amateur sleuthing skills on this case; Kevin, his brother-in-law as well as the local law enforcer, is equally eager that he should not. Yet, Peter is concerned that his friend, whom he knows to be a decent, peaceable soul, could never commit murder, and who surely wouldn’t harm his own pigs. If he doesn’t clear Tom’s name, who will?

This novel is a cozy mystery, despite all the dead porkers (about whom there is blessedly little detail.) It’s humorous in places, and is already building a budding fan base. I love Peter’s dogs, Merry and Pippin; the latter goes just about everywhere with him, and is helpful when push comes to shove. Some of the vet cases make me snicker out loud; I’m gardening as I listen, and hope the neighbors won’t think I’ve lost my mind, all alone and cackling in my lettuce bed.

As for me, I find the first half to be a bit on the slow side, with more extraneous details that aren’t directly relevant to the story than I would prefer. However, I usually am not a cozy mystery lover, either. The second half of the story ramps up the suspense and the intrigue, and when Bannerman heads out to the ice fishermen’s shacks with a storm in the immediate forecast, it’s impossible to put this book down.

The audio is performed by actor Miles Meili, and I find his narrative to be an acquired taste; he tends to sound wryly amused even during the serious parts of the story, and during the first half, I wish wholeheartedly for a print version to refer to. However, once the excitement begins, I can’t think about anybody except poor Peter, who’s out there in that raging storm, and so Mr. Meili’s stylized delivery no longer distracts me.   

The ending is hilarious.

I recommend this book to cozy readers, and I do lean toward the print version, but if you are an audio-or-nothing reader, go ahead and get it in the form you love best.

Potions Are for Pushovers, by Tamara Berry*****

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I loved Berry’s first Eleanor Wilde mystery, Seances Are for Suckers, and so I looked forward to this one. Ellie, our protagonist, makes a living as a sham medium and pusher of herbal potions. She arrived in this tiny English town in the last book, hired by the wealthy Nicholas Hartford to scam his family, but they fell in love and so she stayed here. Business is on hold, however, until the murder of the local battle ax has been solved; until Ellie can sell her potions again, she can’t make a living, and the heat is on.

My thanks go to Net Galley and Kensington Books for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

The glory of satire is that the most tired, trite elements of a mystery can be trotted out and placed on full display, the more overdone the better. Add into it an overflowing supply of snark, swift pacing, a hint of confusion and the very teensiest, briefest moment of sentimentality and the result is, well, magical.

At the same time that Sarah is murdered, pets begin to disappear. A grisly surprise is left in Ellie’s herb garden, and her cat Beast, a menace if ever there was one, is nowhere to be seen. Cats, pigs…what’s next?  Her sometimes-friend the local constable is irritated that Ellie doesn’t pass along the finer details of what she learns, but she points out to him that witches and law enforcement have a problematic history. Crackle crackle, she says. Burn burn.

The best new element is Lenore, a pesky but gifted adolescent that wants to job shadow Ellie. Together with partner Rachel, she embarks upon local werewolf research, and this thread makes me guffaw out loud multiple times. (At one point Lenore decides she’d rather be called Lenny because it sounds more like a gumshoe; my reading notes suggest that Rachel should then become Squiggy. Boomers will understand this reference if nobody else does.)

My affection for Ellie increases when she eats an entire chocolate cake. I’d been watching that cake since she received it, waiting for the typical cozy plot point to play out. Most authors would either have Ellie serve or gift the cake to another recipient, or have it smashed in some sort of hilarious accident before she got a single bite. Berry, however, is not your typical cozy mystery writer. It’s the slightly edgy bits that make this series so successful.

The series is written for adults, but teachers and parents looking for engaging reading for their own gifted adolescent should be fine here. There are no torrid sex scenes, no use of vivid profanity.

Sadly, my own review copy disappeared with no trace from my kindle, so I can’t access juicy quotes; happily. I did use the Goodreads update system, which provided me with the particulars listed above.

There are few authors that can make me laugh out loud every single time I read their work, and that alone makes this writer more valuable to me than most. I await the next Eleanor Wilde book with gleeful anticipation, and whether you have read the first book in this series or not, I recommend this one to you wholeheartedly.

Who Killed the Fonz? By James Boice***

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I was invited to read and review this strange little book by Net Galley and Simon and Schuster, and I thank them. It’s for sale now.

Fonzie is the eternally cool lone-wolf character in the television sitcom “Happy Days,” which was aired during the 1970s and early 1980s, back before the internet and the digital era gave us choices. The show is set in the 1950s, with malt shops, sock hops, and so forth. Richie Cunningham was the main character, an ordinary small town teen who was befriended by the Fonz.  This book morphs forward to the 1980s, which places Richie—er, Richard—in middle age. He’s a Hollywood producer but is called back home by the death of Fonzie.

When I saw this book in my email, I wasn’t sure what to think. How does anyone write this book? Neither Richie nor the Fonz was anything more than a stock character during the series itself. Every problem encountered by any character had to be resolved with humor and warmth within thirty minutes—more like twenty once advertising is figured in. So my first assumption was that this must be some sort of dark satire. But that would be very edgy and risky, and I wasn’t sure Simon would touch something like that. But, it’s an invitation and a quick read, so let’s have a look.

Satire it isn’t. It’s promoted as noir, and it isn’t that either.  I can go sit in the garage. I can say I am a car. I can get my children to all say I am a car. I still won’t be a car, or for that matter a motorcycle. And so I’m telling you right now that this is, in spite of its quirky title and book cover, a cozy mystery, period. It is what it is.

Now, that’s not a bad thing. There are a lot of readers that enjoy a good cozy, and it seems likely that a lot of those readers will fall into the demographic to which this story appeals, namely the Boomer generation, the readers that watched Happy Days when they were young and (hopefully) happy.

So here we are, back in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Potsie and Ralph Malph distrust Richard because he has become some sort of Hollywood big shot. His career is on the rocks, but they don’t know that; all they know is that he’s come back to the Midwest wearing designer clothes, and when he calls himself “Richard,” they snicker. But ultimately they all work together to unsnarl issues of local corruption as well as the mystery about Fonzie, and Richard realizes he is really still Richie.

So we have corn; we have cheese; and we have cheese corn. But it’s an accessible story that will provide a pleasant level of distraction that doesn’t require a tremendous amount of concentration or analysis. If your gram is undergoing chemo, she can take this into treatment and it will help keep her warm.

I recommend this book to those that primarily read cozy mysteries and are familiar with the series.