Skeleton Makes a Friend is another fun romp with Georgia and her animated skeleton Sid. Adjunct Professor Georgia gets a summer job teaching writing to high school students in a prestigious, but rundown, New England college. The job comes with a three bedroom cabin perfect for Georgia, her teenage daughter,Continue Reading
Charming characters in a unique setting enliven A Wrench in the Works, the sixth Fixer-Upper Mystery. Sisters Shannon and Chloe grew up working in their dad’s construction company. Shannon took over her dad’s company when he retired. Chloe moved to Hollywood and stars in a fixer-upper show. Chloe decides toContinue Reading
Three novellas in bestselling cozy mystery series all involving yule logs and set in the Christmas season are told in the Yule Log Murder. The Yule Log Murder is part of the Lucy Stone series. An assistant on a movie shoot is killed while transporting a yule log. It includesContinue Reading
A Gift of Bones is a good small town private investigator cozy mystery. Eve is days away from giving birth when she disappears. A ransom demand is sent to her cousin. Private investigator, Sarah Booth Delaney, and her partner, Tinkie, are hired to find the missing woman. The missing woman’sContinue Reading
A multitude of suspects fills Nantucket Counterfeit, an enjoyable merging of a cozy setting with a police procedural. Horst Refn is the Artistic Director of the Nantucket Theater Lab. He is a ladies man and a possible blackmailer. Worse, he is found face down in his basement’s chest freezer—frostbitten andContinue Reading
In Be Our Ghost, Kate and her grandmother, Liza, run a bed and breakfast in coastal Oregon. When a local businessman is found dead, they investigate to exonerate a local business owner. Soon they are uncovering oodles of secrets in this fine cozy mystery. Norman wants to open a largeContinue Reading
Light and easy cozy mystery set in the world of talent agent, Kay, who provides animal actors to television and film productions. Bird, Bath and Beyond is a nice afternoon’s entertainment with no graphic violence or language. Celebrity parrot, Barney, is the sole witness to the death of television star,Continue Reading
Dead Ringer is another perfect cozy mystery featuring Agatha Raisin! A group of eight bell ringers is planning a song to welcome the handsome and single bishop to their small village, Thirk Magna. The village church is full of secrets. Bishop Peter’s girlfriend disappeared without a trace a few yearsContinue Reading
The Christmas Cake Murder turns the clock back to before Hannah opened her bakery, The Cookie Jar. In a short prequel set before the rest of the books in the series, Hannah returns home from college to attend her father’s funeral. Her mother, Delores, is understandably depressed so she isContinue Reading
Another murder for Bailey to solve in the excellent cozy mystery, Premeditated Peppermint, the third entry in the Amish Candy Shop series. Bailey works with her Amish grandmother and cousin in her deceased grandfather’s candy shop, Swissmen Sweets in rural Ohio. When Bailey’s NYC ex-boyfriend hits town, he asks herContinue Reading
There are two mysteries in the Silver Anniversary Murder. The first is the death of Lucy’s old friend Beth. Beth’s jump from her penthouse’s balcony is ruled a suicide. But Lucy, a reporter in small town Maine, doesn’t believe it. After all, Beth has three ex-husbands and one almost exContinue Reading
“Your eyes are bigger than a hooch hound at a hop joint” says Jack in the Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller. That perfectly describes my feelings when I saw this delightful series return after a ten year long Big Sleep. Penelope runs a bookstore with her aunt Sadie in Quindicott,Continue Reading
In Die Me a River, the small rural town of Scumble River is still recovering from the tornado in the last book in this cozy mystery series. The town is abuzz with complaints about the shady practices of Homestead Insurance. Claims are being reduced, denied and seldom paid timely. WhenContinue Reading
A Deadly Habit plops Charles Paris in a West End play where a real murderer is afoot. Charles Paris “spent a great deal more time out of work than in”. But things are looking up when his lackluster agent Maurice finds him a three-month job playing a monk in TheContinue Reading
Toucan Keep a Secret about a thirty-year-old robbery and murder. By all accounts, Junius Hagley was not a nice man. Frustrated by the paperwork to disintern his wife’s cremated remains, he took matters, and a crowbar, into his own hands to rectify the situation. When someone interrupts, and then murdersContinue Reading
The second Lobster Shack mystery, after Curses, Boiled Again (reviewed here), is as good as the first! Against the Claw starts with Allie pulling lobster traps with Bertha. The last trap also pulls up a dead girl. With Aunt Gully’s Lobster Shack expected to host a huge number of customersContinue Reading