Tag: Mystery

Five stars on top of Five Christmas trees

Five stars on top of five Christmas trees is what I rate Leslie Budewitz’ short story, The Christmas Stranger.

With so much to do this time of year, the holidays are the perfect time for reading short stories. I’m so glad The Christmas Stranger is my first of the season.

Inspired by a kind encounter of her own, Budewitz sets this story in Jewel Bay, Montana, home to her Food Lovers’ Village Mystery series and Erin Murphy, whose family has run the Merc, short for mercantile, for more than a century.

Holidays are a busy juggle for us all, managing a retail business during the holidays requires even more skill to keep all of those balls in the air. But when Erin is multitasking, checking on deliveries, while waiting to check out at the post office, she steps out of line to help an older gentleman, a stranger, and helps him figure out the hoops needed to jump through to get an old-fangled copy machine to work. In thanks for her kindness and her offer to pay for his copies so he doesn’t need to wait in line, he gives her a small square of paper and a heartwarming mystery all in one.

I highly recommend A Christmas Stranger for all Leslie Budewitz Food Lovers’ Mystery fans, as well as all lovers of cozy mysteries and holiday short stories. Please note, this short story originally appeared in Carried to the Grave and Other Stories, and is being released as a standalone in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the series. I received this advance reader copy from Beyond the Page Publishing, courtesy NetGalley.

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

Gritty noir delivers compelling layered mystery

While Robbie Morrison’s Edge of the Grave more-than-gritty prologue stopped me in my tracks – actually putting the book down for a day or two wondering for what I was in store, the subsequent slow build took me a bit to get through with flashbacks but once I got my bearings, it led to a dark but fantastically layered historical noir mystery with interesting characters you care about and want to read more of in future installments.

The Bloody Scotland Debut Crime Novel of the Year award-winner, Edge of the Grave is set in 1932 Glasgow, where poverty, corruption, sectarianism and razor gangs are rampant and where the violence against man, woman or child could be horrific. Family secrets ran just as dark and deep.

Among other crimes, Detective Inspector Jimmy Dreghorn and Detective Sergeant “Bonnie” Archie McDaid set out to solve the murder of Charles Geddes, the husband of Dreghorn’s unrequited love – well maybe requited in his youth – daughter of his former boss, a rich and powerful shipbuilder.

I loved the relationship between Jimmy and Archie and the strengths and weaknesses each brought to the story. I also was happy to see Jimmy support the role of WPC Ellen Duncan actively investigating the case and not just fetching male officers a cuppa.

I also enjoyed Morrison’s movie references throughout and wondered whether or not Dreghorn’s film knowledge would lead to the recognition of a clue. Perhaps in the next installment, Cast a Cold Eye, due out in April.

I recommend Edge of the Grave to fans of gritty historical mysteries and British noir. I received this Advance Reader’s copy of Edge of the Grave from Bantam Books, courtesy of NetGalley.

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

Cheers all around for Murder Uncorked

Murder Uncorked book on desk with antique typewriter, magnifying glass, phone, radio and lamp
If you enjoy a glass of wine and cozy mysteries by the fire this time of year, then cheers all around for a perfect pairing as the Edgar award-winning bestselling author Maddie Day launches Murder Uncorked, her first Cece Barton Mystery novel, set in Northern California’s beautiful wine country.

Cece, a widowed single mom with an estranged college-aged daughter, has recently moved to the fictional town of Colinas from Pasadena, where she is the new proprietor of Vino y Vida, the local wine bar. She has also moved to be closer to her innkeeper/real estate agent twin sister Allie, along with her smart and adorable twin nephews.

Just as she’s settling into her first busy harvest season in Sonoma County, frustration with the politics and leadership of the local wine association finds Cece in the middle of a murder investigation where she’s the prime suspect.

Day has a gift for seamlessly layering in clues to the murderer, all the while rounding out each of the characters and their relationships from Cece to her family and friends, making each feel real.

I enjoyed reading Maddie Day’s Murder Uncorked so much that after reading references to an earlier case, I was thrilled to discover that Cece Barton’s origin story novella Murderous Mittens was recently published with Lee Hollis and Lynn Cahoon. I loved that one too and can’t wait to read the next. Both books and a bottle of wine would make a perfect gift for your favorite cozy mystery lover, even if that’s you.

I recommend Murder Uncorked to cozy mystery fans. I received this Advance Reader’s copy of Murder by Degrees from Kensington Books, courtesy of NetGalley.

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

Dr. Lydia Weston is 1875 Philadelphia’s newest amateur detective

In Murder by Degrees, Ritu Mukerji introduces us to Dr. Lydia Weston, a practicing physician in 1875 Philadelphia and instructor at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, at a time when little faith and confidence was put in lady doctors by not only patients but her male counterparts as well.

Weston’s sharp eye, love of poetry and compassion for her patients and students puts her right in the middle of a murder investigation, when a patient is dragged from the Schuykill River and believed to have committed suicide.

With an undeterred fervor, she works alongside her mentor Dr. Charles Stanley and a reluctant police inspector and his sergeant to find the truth.

Mukerji, a practicing internist for 15 years, layered in beautifully explained medical details without losing the reader. She also came to know the City of Brotherly Love while attending the Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and well translated the marvels of the Philadelphia landscape.

The author also has a BA in history from Columbia University, so it’s no wonder that when this avid mystery reader decided to write her own crime fiction, it would be an historical mystery set in the city in its grand heyday, just before the Centennial Exhibition where the telephone, typewriter and sewing machine would be introduced.

This post-Civil War era also marks the early years of the women’s suffrage movement and is ripe with possibilities for Dr. Lydia Weston. With her protagonist now established, I look forward to Mukerji’s future installments of the series and the development of an even richer character, drawing even farther on lessons learned from her youth, as well as possible romantic involvement with a local police sergeant.
 
I recommend Murder by Degrees to mystery, historical mystery and medical drama fans. I received this Advance Reader’s copy of Murder by Degrees from Simon & Schuster, courtesy of NetGalley.

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

Locked room Murder on the Christmas Express

Murder on the Christmas Express cover on desk with magnifying glass, antique typewriter, telephone, radio
Murder on the Christmas Express takes newly retired Met Detective Roz Parker on a first-class sleeper car trip – a parting gift from her colleagues – as she makes her way home to the Scottish Highlands for the holidays and the impending premature birth of her granddaughter.

Several references to the is Die Hard really a Christmas movie debate among a group of university students en route to try out for a reality quiz show was among the first clues that this wasn’t a cozy yuletide mystery.

Alexandra Benedict, author of The Christmas Murder Game, still embeds Christmas-related anagrams and quizzes into her well-plotted puzzle where the protagonist comes to terms with the death of her mother.

There is also a crippling snowstorm but this time, however, Benedict offers us an emotional locked room mystery that has our detective flashbacking to some of her own trauma, while trying to solve one last case, as the reader soon discovers that the dead aren’t the only victims.

Eighteen passengers and a cat board the train in London – some known to each other, some not. You’ll have to read for yourself to discover how many will live to disembark under their own power.

I recommend Murder on the Christmas Express for mystery lovers, puzzle lovers and readers of non-traditional holiday-themed novels.

I received this Advance Reader’s copy of Murder on the Christmas Express from Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks, courtesy of NetGalley.

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

Wow! Just Wow!

When was the last time a murder mystery/suspense thriller left you with tears in your eyes and a lump in your throat? For me, it was never but that was before I read Lori Rader-Day’s beautifully written, expertly woven The Death of Us.

The award-winning author of Death at Greenway and The Lucky One takes the reader on an emotional ride with rich characters, red herrings, subplots and suspects aplenty in Parkins, a small town where everyone thinks they know your story or they just fill in the blanks.

When a rusted old car with a dead body is pulled from the quarry down the road from Liss Kehoe, old secrets, wounds and gossip are dredged up that could destroy her and all she holds dear. Fifteen years earlier a young woman had shown up at her front door asking for her baby’s daddy, handed the infant Callan to Liss and disappeared into the stormy night. That now grown Callan and his friends had discovered the car poking out of the deep black water. What would happen if and when the truth came out?

I was reading The Death of Us on the beach practically oblivious to everything else around me except that my husband was trying to decipher a seller’s disclosure and condo association rules on his cell phone screen. I knew that I should really be paying close attention to the details – I did try – but my mind was with Liss and what was happening in the climax of this incredible novel.

I highly recommend The Death of Us to not only mystery and suspense fans but everyone. Lori Rader-Day is an amazing writer and I can’t wait to see what she has next for us.

I received this advance reader’s copy from William Morrow Books and William Morrow Paperbacks courtesy of NetGalley.
Order your copy online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Pre-Frankenstein murder mystery for Mary Shelley


From the moment I heard about this book, I knew I had to read Heather Redmond’s Death and the Sisters, a Mary Shelley Mystery. (Yes, that Mary Shelley.) I’m so glad I did.

We first meet the 16-year-old future Frankenstein author and her also 16-year-old stepsister Jane after Mary trades a story in exchange for her 20-year-old half-sister Fanny’s hemming of her shift.  I was hooked.

The following evening Percy Bysshe Shelley comes to dinner in the family’s rooms above their bookshop across the street from Newgate Prison, where Mary’s father hopes to persuade Shelley to pledge his financial support to his publishing enterprise. While the sisters are all smitten with the dashing looks of the young, albeit married, radical poet, Mary appreciated his mind the most.  Mary Shelley, her sisters, Percy Bysshe Shelley and a bookshop…even better.

After their guest has left and the family has retired for the night, Mary heads down to the bookshop in search of research for a ghost story idea. There in the dark shop, she discovers an open door and a dead body just before Jane arrives on the scene. Mary Shelley, sister Jane, Percy Bysshe Shelley, a bookshop and murder. And that’s just in the first eighteen pages!

While this marks the trio’s first fictional adventure, in reality the three shared a lifetime of them together.
Heather Redmond, who has also written the Dickens of a Crime series, has done a phenomenal job dropping possible Frankenstein inspirations for Mary and interspersing lines from classic works throughout the captivating plot. This is the first in Redmond’s Mary Shelley series. I can’t wait to read the next one and will be sure to check out her Dickens, as well.

I highly recommend Death and the Sisters to mystery fans, historical mystery fans, poetry, science fiction and horror fans. I received this advance reader’s copy from Kensington Books, courtesy of NetGalley.

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

I love Agatha Raisin!

Handwritten review of Dead on Target on desk next to antique typewriter, phone and clock radio
Be sure to check out my Instagram reel for a humorous attempt at reading my review on the beach.

The hawk-eyed, sharp-tongued, insatiably curious and colorfully coutured Agatha Raisin and her entourage of friends and lovers—past and present—are back.

In Dead on Target, the London P.R. exec turned Cotswold Private Eye is investigating the murder of Sir Godfrey Pride, a lecherous landowner, whose body Agatha discovered with his pants down and an arrow through his chest, during one of those deadly English village fetes that cozy mystery fans read so much about.

Now fools Agatha doesn’t suffer wisely and that includes Carsely’s Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes, who believes our heroine is the prime suspect when in reality, she could just be the next victim.

Throw in a gangster, counterfeit merch, ballroom dancing and Agatha in God forbid a Mirchester United Hoodie and track suit and Agatha Raisin and cozy mystery fans are in for a treat – a few laughs, a twisty plot and a satisfying ending.

R.W. Green has done an outstanding job of not only capturing the essence of Agatha’s character but also her cohorts and the village of Carsely that the late M.C. Beaton created 34 books ago. Don’t skip the foreword!

I highly recommend Dead on Target for all M.C. Beaton/Agatha Raisin fans and lovers of cozy lighthearted, humorous mysteries. I received this advance reader copy from Minotaur Books, courtesy of NetGalley.

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

More Murphy’s Mercantile mysteries please!

In An Unholy Death, we meet newlywed Kate Murphy and her husband Paddy in 1910 Jewel Bay, Montana. The historical cozy novella offers Leslie Budewitz fans some backstory to the town they’ve come to know and love in her Agatha-Award winning Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, as well as the origins of the Murphy Mercantile, known as the Merc for short in the modern-day series.

It also proves that the Merc’s Erin Murphy is not the first woman in her family to solve a murder. It’s in her blood. After all, the young Kate, not only discovers the body of a respected widowed preacher of the 1910 community, clues fall into her lap that could put her and the preacher’s orphaned daughter in danger.

An Unholy Death is full of plenty of suspects and twists and turns in the plot, which I didn’t see coming. I loved getting to know Kate and seeing the relationship unfold between our protagonist and Paddy, layer by layer.

Although this novella is supposed to have been released as a stand-alone edition from Carried to the Grave and Other Stories, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the series, I do hope we’ll get to read more of Kate and the early days of Jewel Bay. My head was spinning with thoughts of what might happen next.

I highly recommend An Unholy Death for all Leslie Budewitz fans and lovers of historical cozy mysteries. I received this advance reader copy from Beyond the Page Publishing, courtesy NetGalley.

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

Have you met Detective Ben Packard?

I loved Where the Dead Sleep! And its lead character.

Ben Packard is the kind of sheriff every small town would be lucky to have and a detective they would be able to count on to run down every lead in search of the truth, no matter where it takes him. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t forces in play, some not even relegated to the shadows, that not only challenge his mission and authority but also his life.

In Where the Dead Sleep, Joshua Moehling offers us a beautifully written, turn-the-page thriller set in Sandy Lake, Minnesota, a small town with loads of charm and just as many secrets. In this sequel to And There He Kept Her, the fact that their acting sheriff, a relative newcomer, is gay is no longer one of them.

With a plethora of suspects in the murder of Bill Sandersen, a local unambitious partier who had married into one of the town’s founding families not once but twice, Packard has his work cut out for him, not only in the case but also settling into a place he knew as a child, for better or worse.

I love the relationships between the characters, so richly drawn that you know them. Ease and tension, jokes and silence, love and violence, Moehling captures it all.

I highly recommend Where the Dead Sleep. When I turned the last page, I was excited for the next Ben Packard mystery (I’ve already ordered the first) and started wondering who would play one of my new favorite detectives onscreen. I’m thinking Henry Cavill.

I received an advanced reader copy of Where the Dead Sleep from Poisoned Pen Press. This review is fair and impartial.

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

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