Sam, Candie and the gang are involved in another adventure. In this outing, Hank’s brother Aaron (Hank is Sam’s squeeze) is in town and involved with Joy, the daughter of the owner of the diner. A barbecue contest sees a bank manager make a pass at Joy. Aaron leaves in to defend his girlfriend. When the bank manager is found squashed to death by a pumpkin, Aaron is a prime suspect.
But there are many suspects, all with strong motives for wishing Edgar dead.
Lots of fun. The pet parade with all the pets in fancy costumes was a highlight. And I have to give Kazlo credit for finding some of the strangest methods of murder ever. Not only the 2000 pound pumpkin, but an outhouse, a bag of dogwood and so on.
At Death’s Dough is the fifth in Mindy Quigley’s deep dish mysteries. Delilah runs an upscale pizza restaurant. But it is winter, and custom is slow. She is gearing up for Valentine’s Day, and hoping for a good turn out. Dominick Capone, Delilah’s boyfriend’s cousin, has a plan. But a few days later, his body is discovered frozen in the frozen lake outside.
Even more than who murdered him is the why. As Delilah pokes into it, she discovers his murder leads to a long ago death, and a treasure.
I did not even come close to identifying the killer. The characters are engaging and the recipes are good too. Recommended.
I read the Lace Widow on the recommendation of a friend. This is a historical mystery that takes place just after the American Revolution and involves the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.
Eliza Hamilton, Alexander’s widow, is almost prostate with grief at the death of her husband. But she is convinced her husband was murdered and is determined to bring Burr to justice for it. Her questions bring her into contact with a house of widows on Pearl Street, but also to the notice of a band of conspiracists. A brick with a warning note is hurled through her window. And her son, Alexander Junior, is targeted as the murderer of several other men, all friends of his father.
I found the details of early New York City fascinating. The Hamiltons lived in Harlem, which was the country then! Each trip back and forth takes hours. But I didn’t love the main character who, although she is praised for her strength, is always falling into tears, fainting, and sleeping. I would give this a mixed review. Parts are very good, others not so much.
The Dog who knew too much is the third in Spencer Quinn’s Chet and Bernie series. I was hesitant to read it since I disliked The Right Side, also by Quinn, so much. But I was encouraged by a friend to try one of the Chet and Bernies and I loved it.
Bernie is hired by Anya for an odd body guarding job. Bernie reluctantly takes it, and the job quickly spirals into an old mine, that may or may not still have gold, a kidnapping, and yes, a murder. Anya’s son is away at camp and disappears from an overnight. When the search does not turn up the boy, Bernie is arrested for the kidnapping. Of course nothing is simple and, after several twists and turns, the case is solved. Highly recommended.
Murder takes a vacation, by Laura Lippman, is another fun book. Mrs. Blossom, formerly seen in a Tess Monaghan mystery from 2008, stars in this outing. Muriel Blossom finds a stray lottery ticket in a parking lot which turns out to be the winning ticket for 8 million dollars. She offers her best friend Elinor an all expenses paid vacation a Viking cruise.
From the beginning, the trip goes sideways. First, she meets a dapper man on the plane who is the first man to spark something since the death of her husband. When she misses her plane connection, Allan puts her on the train through the Chunnel to France where she will pick up her cruise. After a day spent in Paris, she returns to her hotel to find the French police waiting for her. Allan is dead, fallen from a balcony in Paris. But that is not what Allan told her his plans were. What is going on?
And who is this Danny who keep turning up and tells Mrs. Blossom one story after another and then turns up on her cruise?
Lots of fun. I especially enjoyed this book because I have taken the very cruise that forms the heart of the book. And, as someone who has struggled with weight since childhood, Mrs. Blossom’s own struggles resonated. Highly recommended, both for the characters and the mystery.
Vera Wong runs a failing tea shop in Chinatown with only one regular customer. Then, one morning, she discovers a dead body lying on the first floor. The police come and are not grateful she tried to help by drawing an outline around the body with a Sharpie!
Other people arrive to view the location with the body, all, it turns out, with a connection to the dead man. And all, Vera decides, suspects in his murder. An artist, an app created, the dead mans’s wife and his brother.
But the mystery unreels differently than Vera, or the reader, expects.
The murderer is someone totally unexpected. Well plotted, with interesting characters (especially Vera!) and a heart warming conclusion. Highly recommended!
The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt is almost uncategorizable.
After a lifetime of emotional abuse levied upon Harriet by her father, he disappears. She is left alone in a shadowy house with am amazing garden, Harriet’s refuge. The roses, the ivy respond to her, comforting her.
Then Inspector Stokes arrives to question her. He clearly suspects her of murdering her father and besides, she is not a proper lady. To escape Stokes, Harriet marries Mr. Comstock – and jumps from the frying pan into the fire.
A plot against Harriet mixes with a little magic. Recommended.
Spencer Quinn writes mysteries involving dogs and is probably most famous for his Chet and Bernie series.
The Right Side is a standalone. We first meet LeAnn at Walter Reed, recovering from injuries sustained in Afghanistan. She lost her eye and her memory is patchy at best. (She is the definition of the unreliable narrator.) And she is very very angry, so angry every comment sets her off. She is far too angry to let anyone help her. One day she gathers up her things and walks out of the hospital.
She purchases a car and travels west, finally coming to rest in a small town. A large stray dog literally saves her life. LeAnn is not a dog person but she can’t bear to give up the dog to a shelter.
Two parallel stories run side by side. First, her experiences in Afghanistan, told mostly in flashbacks. Second, the disappearance of Mia, daughter of Marci, a fellow injured vet LeAnn meets in Walter Reed.
I did not care for this book. Significantly more than half is taken up with LeAnn’s physical and mental struggles. She does not meet the dog until probably 70% through. I also would not have described this book as a mystery since only the final quarter has any mystery about it. Although LeAnn does not know what really happened the day of her injury, her commanding officer does. He explains it, and, sure enough, that was it. Plus, the cause of the disappearance of Mia is obvious to the reader well before it is to LeAnn.
Hana Babic îs a quiet, unassuming woman who works in the library. (Not a librarian, actually. No degree.) One day a detective arrives with bad news. Hana’s best friend Amina is dead under mysterious circumstances. Amina has left her grandchild to Hana.
Hana knows she had to discover the identity of Amina’s murderer or the eight-year-old child will never be safe. Hana has the skills to do it for she is more than she appears. During the Serbian/Bosnian conflict, Hana survived when the rest of her family were murdered. She became a partisan, known as the Night Mora, a lethal mythological creature. Now Hana must become the Night Mora again to protect the child and finally find closure for the horrific experiences she endured during the war.
Simon Brett is a long time mystery author, most famous for his Charles Paris series. Death in the Dressing Room is the 22nd Fethering mystery.
Carole, a very proper English woman, does not care for the theater. But her best friend, Jude, who counts actress among her many jobs, does. She attends a new play based on a classic television show, mainly because she knows one of the principal actors although Jude did watch the show.
But when Jude goes back stage to see Drake, she finds him dead on the floor, smacked in the head by a prop. There are many suspects, both those in the play as well as the stage manager. Together Carole and Jude investigate.
I’m not a big fan of the Fethering mysteries but I enjoyed this one. Carole particularly is a fun character although I think she would be annoying in real life. The mystery connects to an older mystery (originally declared an overdose)and as in all good mysteries, there are a lot of red herrings and the murderer is a surprise. Recommended.
River of Fallen Angels is the latest in Rowland’s Victorian mystery series. It starts with a bang when Sarah, Hugh and Mick find human remains on the bank of the Thames. Not the whole body, mind, but a few pieces. The so-called Torso Killer is back.
Sarah and her posse jump into the investigation. But Sarah and her husband are almost immediately at odds in whom they suspect.And Inspector Reid, who believes the Torso killer and the Ripper are one and the same, takes another tack entirely.
While Barrett investigates suspects from the Ripper murders, Sarah’s sister Sally has the brilliant idea to search the personals. Doing so leads them to a woman who was once missing but now is in an insane asylum. Sarah begins to focus on a strange religion, the Haven of Love, and the charismatic leader who follows it.
Meanwhile, the bitter rivalry between Reid and Sarah intensifies, but results in a totally unimagined twist at the end. Highly Recommended.
Chilled to the dog bone is S.A. Kazlo’s fifth book.As in the previous offerings, the action takes place in Wings Falls, New York. All the familiar characters are in place.
Decorated outhouses (yes, really) with a prize going to the best one are a popular town winter event. The Loopy Ladies have an entry. Gladys, one of the best and funniest characters, will ride the outhouse across the ice. But the morning of the competition, a disliked man is found frozen to death in the outhouse. And both Gladys’s and Sam’s( that’s Samantha) fingerprints are all over the water bottles outside.
But the victim was so unpopular there are many suspects.
Worse, from Sam’s point of view, a new woman is working at town hall, an attractive blonde named Sunny Foxx. And Sam catches Hank, her significant other, with his arms around Sunny in his office!
Light, frothy, laugh-out loud funny in places. My only criticism is that Kazlo uses the same descriptions repeatedly. Hank is always described with crystal-blue eyes, for example, and Candie, Sam’s cousin, has violet eyes.
Lies, lost and found was the third Boulden I’ve read and it is just as enjoyable as the others. This is the second in the Lake Amelia series.
While Rose is cleaning out the family home after her father’s death, she finds $10,000 and a note in an unfamiliar handwriting. Who left the money? Rose embarks on a search for the money’s owner and soon finds herself searching for the note’s writer as well. Her search involves her in a mystery surrounding immigrants and soon spirals into trafficking, murder and the involvement of people Rose knows and trusts.
This is a thriller rather than a mystery, but it is certainly engrossing. Recommended.
