Tag: Mystery

Bravo!

Bravo!

In A Long Time Gone, author Joshua Moehling delivers a beautifully written thriller full of mystery, emotion and suspense that leaves the reader sitting back in their chair saying, “Wow.”

Life hasn’t been easy of late for my favorite sexy detective. In this third book in the Ben Packard mystery series, we find our protagonist pulling court-security detail when a shooting puts him on leave and under investigation with too much time to think – not only about recent events and his future but his older brother’s decades earlier disappearance from the family’s lake house, as well.

After more details of that tragedy had come to light, a visit with his mother to visit the owner of his grandparent’s former home brings back memories. It also sends Packard on another investigation with life-threatening consequences.

Moehling should teach a master class on creating rich, fictional characters as real as they come. From Ben to his mother, his friends/coworkers and romantic interests, it’s all there with depth and easy, subtle strokes.

I highly recommend A Long Time Gone for mystery, thriller and LGBTQ fiction fans. I received this advanced reader copy of A Long Time Gone from Poisoned Pen Press, courtesy of NetGalley.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

Royally Intriguing: The King’s Court Murders

From his brilliant series debut to the fourth novel, my excitement still hasn’t waned for Ellis Blackwood’s Samuel Pepys Mysteries.

In my favorite to date, The King’s Court Murders finds the famed diarist’s inquisitors -Pepys’ former housemaid, Abigail Harcourt, and Jacob Standish – paying a visit, as honored guests of Charles II at his court at Whitehall Palace, where Jacob’s younger sister Anne resides as one of the king’s mistresses.

After one of the mistresses is murdered and Pepys is implicated, the king gives Jacob and Abigail an emotionally fraught 24 hours to find the truth and exonerate their esteemed employer.

With his incredible gift for seamlessly weaving setting, history and a most compelling mystery, Blackwood brings readers on a thrilling adventure through 17th century London and the royal court.

I highly recommend The King’s Court Murders for anyone interested in historical cozy mysteries and 17th century London. I received this advanced reader copy of The Brampton Witch Murders from Vintage Mystery Press, courtesy of the author.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

If you’d like a peek into the world of Samuel Pepys inquisitors and a free novella, visit https://ellisblackwood.com/

For more on Samuel Pepys, Abigail, Jacob and bringing 17th Century London to life, check out my interview with Ellis Blackwood below.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

It’s not nice to use Santa as a weapon

Bestselling author Geri Krotow had me hooked from Ralph the watch parrot’s first squawk on the first page of her A Santa Stabbing, the first installment of her Shop ‘Round the World mystery series.

After traveling the globe, retired Navy pilot, Angel Warren, is excited to start the next chapter of her life in Stonebridge, Pennsylvania, close to family and reconnect with old friends. The widow and recent empty nester with twin girls off at college in opposite ends of the state is just weeks away from opening her Shop ‘Round the World, travel-themed gift shop when she discovers the body of an old classmate in her storeroom, stabbed with a broken Santa figurine from her shop. Despite the fact another old friend is now her hometown’s chief of police, Angel is the prime suspect.

She’s been away from Stonebridge for a long time. So even when she’s eliminated from suspicion, the town’s gossip mill continues to spread rumors she killed the cut-throat real estate agent. With her reputation and the success of her shop on the line, Angel sets out to find the real killer before she becomes the next victim.

I love Krotow’s easy style and humor, getting to know her rich characters, with plenty of suspects and plot twists and a possible romance with Nate the handsome and artistic barista — that is if he’s not the murderer. I look forward to reading future installments.

I ho-ho-highly recommend A Santa Stabbing to lovers of traditional mysteries, cozy mysteries, and Christmas cozies and look forward to reading future installments of the series.
Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

Mistletoe and Murder Most Cozy

In Mistletoe and Murder, A Kate Hamilton Mystery novella, we find my newest favorite crime solving duo — Kate, an American antiques dealer and her almost-husband, DI Tom Mallory in the days leading up to Christmas and their wedding in Suffolk, UK.

Despite the picturesque village winter scene, which she beautifully paints, USA Today bestselling author Connie Berry immediately sets the tone, with Kate having jinxed herself aloud by pronouncing her wedding would be perfect. It shows up in small ways at first throwing a wrench in timing for the big day in a Mercury retrograde kind of way. But the biggest jinx of all begins when Kate’s friend, Sheila — another bride-to-be, needs her help. Before long, a little help turns into a life and death situation when Sheila goes missing, that could not only nix the Christmas Eve wedding but their lives, as well.

I highly recommend Mistletoe and Murder, to fans of Christmas cozies, traditional cozy mysteries, British mysteries, and partners in crime-solving duos.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

You Feta Watch Out

It doesn’t get much cozier than Linda Reilly’s You Feta Watch Out, the fifth installment of her Grilled Cheese Mystery series.

Carly Hale, proprietor of Carly’s Grilled Cheese Eatery and amateur sleuth has front row seats in the Flinthead Opera House, to watch her best friend Gina’s dress rehearsal of A Christmas Carol. However, before the day is done, Dickens’ beloved work has a fourth ghost or rather the actor, who had been playing Marley, was found dead with Scrooge’s boss’ chains around his neck and Carly’s bestie is a prime suspect.

With the help of a local journalist, the winking knowledge of the local police chief and a cast of characters as rich as her cheeses, Carly is committed to finding the real killer, proving Gina’s innocence – not an easy task, even a dangerous one when questioning actors, not knowing if they are telling the truth or plying their trade.

There will be no pouting if you read You Feta Watch Out and I highly recommend it for cozy mystery fans looking for a festive read. I received this advanced reader copy from Beyond the Book Publishing, courtesy of NetGalley. Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

*If you enjoy holiday mysteries as much as I do, be sure to check out the Second Annual More Mystery Please Santa Advent calendar, beginning December 1 as I share my new holiday favorite reads, giveaways and more.

Juniper Blume is back

What’s not to love in Daphne Silver’s The Tell-Tale Homicide? A rare books librarian/amateur sleuth, who loves to dress in vintage chic, a murder that could be somehow connected to Edgar Allan Poe, not to mention she drives a blue roadster just like my favorite girl detective.

The follow-up to Silver’s Agatha Award-winning Crime and Parchment, this second installment in the Rare Books Mystery series finds Juniper Blume back in Rose Mallow on the first day of her dream job at the Calverton Foundation, overseeing the town’s much disliked founding family’s private collection for a new museum.

Having left her post at the Library of Congress, it isn’t long before Juniper begins to question her move that she hoped would also bring her even closer with her sister, Azalea, who owns a local inn, as well as Leo Calverton, grandson to the historic family matriarch.

After discovering the body of a man clutching a rare copy of Poe, stolen from the Calverton collection, Juniper is certain the book has something to do with his death and can’t help but set out to find the murderer, even if it puts herself in jeopardy.

Silver brings readers a can’t-put-it-down mystery, with the perfect seasoning of romance, an interesting array of suspects that will keep you guessing and a rich cast of characters that makes it hard to wait for the next addition to the Rare Book Mystery Series.

I highly recommend The Tell-Tale Homicide for Poe-natics and cozy mystery fans alike. I received this advanced reader copy courtesy of the author. Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

Can’t-put-it down holiday whodunit


Leave it to an author with a name like Noelle Albright to pen a can’t-put-it down holiday whodunit with just the right amount of lightness and dark, humor and suspense, colorful characters, red herrings and a ghost in The Christmas Eve Murders.

I read it in one sitting and absolutely loved it!

Picture the bucolic glacier valleys of the Yorkshire Dales on Christmas Eve. Then imagine breaking down there in a snowstorm en route to Edinburgh to spend the holidays with the family. You realize you don’t have a cell signal when a strange man knocks on your window. That’s how journalist Maddie Marlow finds herself spending Christmas Eve with the locals at the Merry Monarch, just in time for the annual scavenger hunt.

Despite not knowing anyone, for Maddie, choosing teams for the evening’s festivities was easy. Choosing allegiances after a murder takes place in the snowbound pub is a whole other story. Who can she trust?

I highly recommend The Christmas Eve Murders to readers who enjoy humor and suspense in equal measures. I received this advanced reader copy from Quercus, courtesy of NetGalley. Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

*If you enjoy holiday mysteries as much as I do, be sure to check out the Second Annual More Mystery Please Santa Advent calendar, beginning December 1 as I share my new holiday favorite reads, giveaways and more.

A rich blend of history, mystery and murder


In The Coffee House Murders, masterful storyteller Ellis Blackwood, sets Abigail Harcourt and Jacob Standish on another captivating adventure bringing the post-Great Fire 1660’s London to life.

This third installment of the Samuel Pepys Mysteries finds the famed diarist, the Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board and adviser to King Charles II, for whom the series is named, charging his young inquisitors with another mission – to find his missing pocket watch.

The seemingly innocuous task soon takes a dangerous turn when the pair put their sleuthing abilities to work upon discovering the murder of a wit and parliamentarian, which they had met in Rose’s Coffee House on the Strand, the very coffee house the two had frequented the previous night.

After the investigation leads to an adjacent royalist-clientele coffee house, the Gilded Bean, it becomes clear treachery is afoot. In order to protect the crown and Pepys, who has no idea of his inquisitors activities, they must break into Westminster. If caught, the consequences are deadly. If they do not break in, the consequences are the same, save for who will die.

I love the way Abby and Jacob’s confidence and skills continue to grow and though not yet romantic, how they’ve come to rely on each other.

In this third installment in as many months, Blackwood continues to impress with his ingenious plotting, characterization, and richly detailed setting, painting another brilliant whodunit. I highly recommend The Coffee House Murders to fans of historical fiction, historical mysteries and British mysteries.

I received an advance reader’s copy of The Coffee House Murders, courtesy of the author and Vintage Mystery Press. Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

If you’re interested in learning more about Samuel Pepys, his diary is available online. Pepys’ diary entries from 1665 are also woven into the narrative of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated The Great Plague by Dorothy and Lloyd Moot (for which I was privileged to host a C-Span BookTV episode).

Review by Di Prokop
More Mystery Please

Secrets

National bestselling author Benjamin Stevenson’s fast-paced, fourth-wall breaking Christmas “special” – Everyone this Christmas has a Secret: A Festive Mystery is the third book in the Ernest Cunningham Mysteries series and finds said detective trying to clear his ex-wife of of murdering her rich philanthropist boyfriend.

Not having read the previous two books in the series, it took me a bit to catch up with the characters, and the more foretelling than foreshadowing style of the writing. Once I did though, I was rewarded with a clever plot, witty writing and a solid whodunit with a cliffhanger of a climax tied up in a bow by the 24th day of the Advent calendar.

I recommend Everyone This Christmas has a Secret to readers who enjoy humorous cozies, Christmas special installments, and detective fiction. I received this advanced reader copy from Mariner Books, courtesy of NetGalley. Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop
More Mystery Please

*If you enjoy holiday mysteries as much as I do, be sure to check out the Second Annual More Mystery Please Santa Advent calendar, beginning December 1.

The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year

As a lover of Christmas mysteries, how could I resist the chance to read The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year? Still, I feared that while the title might signal the most delicious cozy, it may also turn out to be just cutesy rom-com banter disguised as a mystery.

Not to worry. New York Times bestselling author Ally Carter gives readers full-fledged holiday whodunit suspense with twists, turns, and – no matter how superficial some may appear – characters with real depth.

When rival cozy fiction rising star Maggie Chase and the too-handsome thriller author Ethan Wyatt are whisked away by private jet to spend the holidays with their biggest fan and her family at an English country estate and it snows, it can only mean one thing – a locked room mystery to solve – when their host, the most powerful author in the world and Maggie’s idol, goes missing.

Maggie and Ethan team up to not only find the missing mystery maven but solve the attempted murder of another author at the holiday gathering. With suspects, motives and literary clues aplenty, not to mention watching the duo get to know and trust each other made for the coziest of romantic mysteries.

I highly recommend The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year to fans of cozy mysteries and romantic comedies. I received this advanced reader copy from Avon Publishing, courtesy of NetGalley.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

*If you enjoy holiday mysteries as much as I do, be sure to check out the Second Annual More Mystery Please Santa Advent calendar, beginning December 1.

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