“Clap clap. She ducked a minute too late as the coil of rope settled around her neck.” from the prologue of the Suffering of Strangers. Roberta has had a day. Her six week old son will not stop crying. Her husband calls and wants her to pick up some champagneContinue Reading
Set at a National Beagle Association event, Whiskers in the Dark is another satisfying entry in the Mrs. Murphy cat cozy mystery series. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, crime solving cats, plus Tee Tucker, a Corgi dog, and Pirate, an Irish Wolfhound puppy, get clues to two mysteries from a ghostlyContinue Reading
Timothy Blake tells himself it is Just One Bite and rips a chunk out of the relatively recent murder victim he found in the woods. Timothy is there to pick up a crime boss’ latest victim. But how can he fit two large bodies in his ancient Corolla’s trunk. TheContinue Reading
Your Life is Mine has a great hook. Blanche, the daughter of a famous deceased cult leader tries to solve her mother’s murder many years later. Was it simply a random home invasion or has her father’s cult returned to complete his mandate? At the same time, a journalist isContinue Reading
Albert Hicks was both the Last Pirate of New York and its first gangster in this amazingly true story set in 1860 New York City. A ghost ship was found drifting near NYC harbor. Its crew of four were missing. However, traces of them were left behind. Copious blood, chunksContinue Reading
“ ’I think I killed someone.’ The man’s voice whispered across the phone lines.” Jessie is a pregnant attorney who receives this Midnight Call from her mentor, high school teacher Terrence Butterfield. Terrence claims he remembers nothing of the incident after his whiskey-fueled anger that kids were tagging his walls.Continue Reading
A collection of fifteen previously published stories plus two new ones fill Flight or Fright. If you haven’t read Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, or seen the iconic Twilight Zone episode, join one man’s solo terror when he sees a man (or does he?) trying to destroy the wing of hisContinue Reading
Richard Pryce is killed with an expensive wine bottle. The killer writes 182 in green paint on the wall. Those are not the most extraordinary points in The Sentence is Death. Anthony Horowitz, the fictional writer, written by the real Anthony Horowitz, the author of this book, is working withContinue Reading
In Limited Wish, Mark is a busy sixteen-year-old. He is still playing Dungeons & Dragons with his high school buddies. However, now he is a freshman at Cambridge University. He is getting over a breakup and finding a new love. He is battling cancer. All while dealing with time travel,Continue Reading
The Last Thing She Remembers is being at the airport. She can’t remember how she got there or even her name. She has her suitcase but there is no indication in it of her name or destination. Luckily, she finds a train ticket home in her pocket. When she arrivesContinue Reading
Darn Crepe Expectations! The good news is that I have found another great cozy mystery series where the characters feel like real friends. The bad news is that I will have to buy and read the four prior books in the series even though my To Be Read pile isContinue Reading
In Sweet Cream Ladies, Ltd., two over-the-hill (in their late thirties!) and self-acknowledged overweight actresses decide life isn’t fair. Unfortunately, their self-help plan may get them arrested. In New York City, Binnie and Bootsie are underemployed actresses, who need to find better paying jobs. They jokingly, drunkenly, and loudly stateContinue Reading
It seems like the Ghost of Hollow House may have been Agatha Christie as this tale fits right in her wheelhouse. In Victorian England, Mina uncovers fraudulent mediums. She also writes fictional mysteries that include spiritual elements. When she is asked to uncover the reason for the haunting of aContinue Reading
Steph is Chief of Internal Affairs in the FBI’s Washington D.C. field office. But at nineteen, she was a summer intern for Senator Halliday when she was raped by him. Finding herself pregnant, she decides to keep her baby in Keep You Close. Her now seventeen year old son, Zachary,Continue Reading
Spend an afternoon reading A Dead Man and Doggie Delights and you won’t be disappointed by this captivating cozy mystery, the first in a new series. Maggie is risking it all on opening a ba(r)kery and cafe with her best friend, Jamie, in a small town in Colorado. She movesContinue Reading
Thirty years apart, two women with obsessive-compulsive disorder track a serial killer in Some Choose Darkness. In 1979, Angela is newly married to Thomas in suburban Chicago. She also has a photographic memory and ocd. When frightened by a stranger in the alley behind her house, she begins to suspectContinue Reading