Tag Archives: murder mysteries

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This week I read two cozies, one I liked very much. The other not so much.

An A-list for Murder is the second in the Evelyn Gallagher series by Amy Patricia Meade. Evelyn is working on another movie with Hitchcock at the beginning of WWII. She meets a sobbing young woman, Phoebe Dillon, in the bathroom. The next day, the body of the young woman is discovered in an empty lot and soon after an article slandering her appears in the paper. Evelyn contacts her friend, Lt. Ziegler and is soon involved in questioning people who knew the girl. At an event, Evelyn meets Ted Dorton and he swears he did not write the article about Phoebe.And Alex, Evelyn’s love, makes a surprise appearance.

As Evelyn investigates, she discovered the girl’s murder had far more to do with world events than the movies, involving, among other things, the Nazi efforts to keep the US out of the war.

This one is even better than the first one was. Highly Recommended.

I also read Hiss me Deadly by Miranda James. Librarian Charlie and his cat Diesel are involved in another mystery. The return of an Athena native, who ran away at 16 and made a huge success of himself as a musician, has the town in a tizzy. Wil wants to talk to Charlie; the young man feels something is off and wants Charlie to look around. Charlie soon discovers that Wil’s success, breaking up a local band, has caused some hard feelings. When the lead singer of the high school band shows up at an event featuring Will and his current band, and is electrocuted, Charlie realizes that the situation is far more serious than he realized.

Several other murders occur before Charlie finally understands what is happening.

The beginning of this book was interesting (although I found Diesel not at all catlike.) However, about halfway through, the story got away from James. It read as though she’d put down the book and picked up the story later; it didn’t really hang together. So, not terrible, but not wonderful either.

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I picked up Lost and Found In Prague, by Kelly Jones, because I have been in Prague. It did not disappoint.

Dana Pierson receives a frantic note from her cousin Caroline, a Carmelite nun in Prague, that she needs Dana’s help. Dana and Caroline had gone to Prague some twenty years previously, arriving during the Velvet Revolution when the then named Czechoslovakia separated from Communist Russia. Dana had gone home but Caroline remained, having fallen in love with a Czech.

When she arrives, Dana has trouble meeting with Caroline. An old nun has died in the church and the nunnery is closed to outsiders. At the same time a priest, Giovanni Borelli arrives at the request of the church’s priest. They form a duo of sorts to investigate not only the nun’s death but the disappearance of the Infant of Prague. The local detective Damcek, who is investigating the assassination of a senator, becomes an unlikely ally.

The mystery becomes more intricate than I expected, involving a long ago murder, blackmail, political chicanery and more as well as the death of the nun and the disappearance of the religious artifact.And yes, Dana goes to many of the places I visited while in Prague.

Recommended.

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Burning Ridge is the fourth installment in this series by Mizushima. In this outing, a partially burned body is discovered on a high ridge in the Colorado Mountains. When Mattie Cobb and Robo are called in to investigate, the case spirals into something much more serious. Three more bodies are discovered and this time Mattie has a personal connection to the murders. But Mattie, Robo and Cole Walker persevere and not only identify the murderer but also a sprawling case involving drugs and human trafficking.

I love these books. The mysteries are great and the relationship between Mattie and Robo is wonderful. I also really like that Robo is a real dog, not an anthropomorphized animal as one sees so often in cozy mysteries.

Highly Recommended.

This is the second in the Tuscan mysteries.

A famous, but arrogant and unpleasant, wine critic drives off the road and is killed. But the tox screen reveals he has been poisoned by antifreeze. Nico is drawn into the investigation of the victim’s wife, and all the vintners who owed him money. All the regulars are here: Nico’s relatives who run the restaurant he works in, The Dante quoting Gogol, Perillo, and Daniele Donato.

The mysteries are great but even more appealing is the wonderful setting and the descriptions of the food. Read a chapter and you are hungry! My only criticism is I wish there was a glossary of the food names, most of which I had to look up.

Highly Recommended.

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Expired Listings by D.M. Barr follows Dana Black, a smart but emotionally damaged realtor. Someone is murdering realtors from Dana’s realty and all the clues point to her as the murderer. She is afraid to admit where she actually was, since she uses the empty listings for meetings with her kinky lover Dare.

Dana was abandoned by her mother to the care of her grandmother as a young child and has never recovered from the trauma. She is jealous of her older sister, Melanie, who was raised by their mother and is also the big seller at the realty office.

As the police begin to focus on Dana, she hires a private detective to help clear her name and find the true murderer. She and Melanie are put in serious danger before the murderer is unmasked and Dana seems finally able to move on and heal.

I do not typically read erotica but here it serves the purpose of illuminating Dana’s emotional damage and the scars left by a lifetime of abandonment. The characters are believable and I found myself thoroughly engaged in Dana’s life.

Highly Recommended.

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While I was at Malice Domestic, I picked up several books to read. I think I spent way more than I made by selling my books. Anyway, this was one.

I sat next to this author at the book signing and bought his book. Kuehn is a practicing archaeologist so he knows of what he speaks.

Jack Caine is conducting a field school, where students help excavate a site. In this case, a Native American village. A few years previously, another professor, Jacklyn Wardell, had died under mysterious circumstances. Problems at the dig arise; trespassers, a break-in at the lab, and more. When Jake finds Wardell’s Journal, he is drawn even deeper into the mystery of her death.

The local sheriff admits he was never satisfied by the accidental ruling. Then a local photographer who’d taken many photos of the previous dig is found murdered. It’s up to Jack to figure out the mystery and identify the murderer.

During the first half of the book, the murder mystery takes a back seat to the archaeological details. If the reader is interested in archaeology, which I am, this is fascinating. If not, I think the reader will find it slow-moving. The book picks up in the second half, when the mystery moves front and center and Jack begins to seriously investigate. Recommended, with that caveat.

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The Turnbull Murders is the second in R.J. Koreto’s Wren Fontaine series. Wren has taken a job renovating a mansion on an island in the New York Harbor. The house has been bought by a movie star and he and his entourage are filming on the island as Wren works. Very soon after Nicky Tallon, Saffron, Thalia and all the other actors arrive, a PR rep Beebee is found dead. The coffee was poisoned by fentanyl and because it was Saffron’s drink, the police assume she was the target.

Several people within the entourage have secrets. Wren and Hadley, who is catering the food for the movie people, painstakingly uncover the secrets at the same time they delve into the secrets of the house. The story behind it is that Captain Turnbull, who built it, murdered a male servant for developing a relationship with his sister and then escaped to sea. Needless to say, the reality was a lot more complicated.

A second murder occurs and then a third is attempted. But Wren, despite her often repeated statement that she is not good with people, figures everything out.

I read the first book and I think this second one is the better story. But both are interesting and I plan to read the third. The use of an architect as the amateur detective is unusual and Wren’s unraveling the mysteries based on patterns connected to the houses is interesting. Recommended.

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The Greenleaf Murders : a Historical House Mystery, is the first in a new series by R. J. Koreto and it has a unique focus; the restoration of an old house.

Wren Fontaine is an architect with a focus on the restoration of historic mansions. The company, run by her father, is hired to restore the Greenleaf House. Besides the usual electrical and plumbing problems, Wren must work around Aunt Agnes, a woman in her nineties, who is still living in the house and has the right to live there for the rest of her life.

Stephen Greenleaf is very cagey about the eventual fate of the house and concerns abound that a firm known for cutting corners will take over the renovations and turn the house into a hotel. When the representative of the company is found shot to death with an antique gun, the stakes immediately increase tenfold. Then, in a review of the attic, the skeleton of a young woman is discovered in an old trunk. The body dates from almost a hundred years in the past – but the victim was shot with the same gun.

Greenleaf family secrets and family scandals soon embroil Wren in the investigation. The house holds the answers.

Unusual setting and focus. Recommended.

Visiting Crete – Gortnya

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Evidence of human habitation of this area go back to the Neolithic, approximately 7000 B.C.E. Many ruins date to the Minoan period. Gortnya, however, reached one of its most successful periods during the Hellenistic era.

Gortnya appears in the Greek myths. Zeus takes the form of a bull and kidnaps Europa from Lebanon and takes her to Gortyna. They have three children, one of whom is Minos. He takes the kingship for Knossos. One of Minos’s two brothers becomes king in Gortnya, the other in Phaistos, thereby covering the three cities on Crete.

Gortnya also has a labyrinth of caves. Once used as a quarry, the caves have been closed off for many years for safety reasons. Gortnya is most famous now because the oldest law code has been found there. It primarily concerns inheritance laws.

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I have been a fan of Lori Robbins since Murder in the First Position, part of her ballet themed mysteries. (She has since been nominated for an Agatha Award for the fifth in this series, appropriately titled Murder in Fifth Position.)

In Lesson Plan for Murder, and its sequel Study Plan for Murder, she changes her setting to a High School. Her protagonist, an English teacher, investigates two murders connected to the school.

In Lesson Plan for Murder, a truly obnoxious fellow teacher is murdered. Theories run rampant, including suicide, but Liz Hopewell is convinced no English teacher would commit suicide without leaving a perfectly composed note. She then finds some mysteriously coded notes on classic books, which Liz is convinced hold the key to the solution. Despite warnings from her husband, and a handsome detective, Liz throws herself into investigating. When several more teachers are poisoned, Liz realizes the killer is someone in the school, and he won’t stop. Liz continues until she identifies the killer, and almost loses her life in the process.

Study Guide for Murder is a more personal mystery. Liz’s husband is eager for them to join an upscale golf club and he wants the sports-challenged Liz to learn golf. At her first lesson, a man is murdered with her golf club. Liz is on the case, assisted by her sister. Now Liz is the prime suspect.

At the same time, Liz and her sister are researching their past, the father who abandoned them for another family, and who owed money all over town. The investigation brings them to the rundown streets of Brooklyn, their childhood home, and a family mystery.

Highly Recommended. The characters feel very real, Liz is an engaging detective, and the setting is great. I can’t wait for the next book in this series.

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After a week spent in the Mediterranean (more on that later) and the weekend immediately after at Malice Domestic (one of the major writing conferences) I am finally back to my regular schedule.

The Burmese Kitten: An Emma Grant Mystery

When Emma Grant’s best friend decides to move out to live with her partner, Emma Grant advertises for a female roommate to share her apartment. Instead, two men show up. The handsome polished Bob Appleton and the slovenly and abrasive student Steve Gorey. Although she refuses them the room, both men begin cycling in and out of her life.

But Emma has other problems to worry about. Her partner, and uncle, wants to expand her business, the Empire Assurance Company. And more seriously, there is a fire at a house Emma’s company insures; a fire which is quickly determined as arson. Then two bodies are discovered in the ruins. By the time Emma works through the various threads and solves the murders, we have seen greed, antiquities smuggling, prostitution and more.

This is a fairly long book. I also found the murderer pretty easy to identify. But the characters are both believable and interesting and the scenes of Albany at this time are fascinating. Recommended.