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Cozy Mystery Book Recommendations – February 2016

My favorite Cozy Mystery of February is Susanna Calkins’ The Masque of a Murderer, the third in her absolutely terrific historical, British Cozy Mystery series. I am an absolute fan of Susanna Calkins‘ Lucy Campion Mystery Series.

The Lucy Campion series follows Lucy, a young woman who starts out as a chambermaid for a local magistrate in 17th century London. Fortunately for Lucy, her employer is a kind man who has taught her to read which opens other employment opportunities for her.

Rather than write why I enjoy Susanna Calkins’ mysteries so much, I’m going to refer you to three of my earlier posts. In May of 2013 I wrote Susanna Calkins, Author of A Murder at Rosamund’s Gate : My Newest Favorite Author and I recommended both of the first books in her series on two previous recommendation entries as well. (Cozy Mystery Books Recommendations – May 2013 and Mystery Book Recommendations – January 2015)

Oh, and there are lots of other Cozy Mystery readers who also think Susanna Calkins is a wonderful mystery author. She has been nominated for a Bruce Alexander Memorial Mystery award, a Lovey Best Historical novel, a Mary Higgins Clark award, and also an Agatha Award for Best Historical mystery.

How about you? Would you please tell us about the really good Cozy Mysteries you read during February, and please tell us why you liked them so much. These should be the Cozies you thought were even better than the other Cozies you read. The rest of us would love reading your recommendations/comments. I know I get lots of new-to-me Cozy Mystery authors based on your comments. (Please list the Cozies you liked the most at the very top of your list.)

As usual, please do not tell us about the Cozy Mysteries you did not like.

What really good Cozy Mystery book did you read during February 2016 that you want the rest of us to know about, and why did you enjoy it?

Here are the current recommended authors who some of you have read and recommended this past month:

Victoria Abbott (Mary Jane Maffini & daughter Victoria Maffini): Book Collectors Mystery Series

Cathy Ace: WISE Enquiry Agency Mystery Series

Ellery Adams: Books by the Bay Mystery Series

Ellery Adams: Book Retreat Mystery Series

Donna Andrews: Meg Langslow Mystery Series

Donald Bain (w/ Renée Paley-Bain & Jessica Fletcher): Murder She Wrote Mystery Series (Two Cozy readers recommended this series this month.)

M.C. Beaton (aka Marion Chesney): Hamish Macbeth Mystery Series

Emily Brightwell: Mrs. Jeffries Mystery Series

Leslie Budewitz: Seattle Spice Shop Mystery Series

Susanna Calkins: Lucy Campion Mystery Series

Kate Carlisle: Fixer-Upper Mystery Series (Two Cozy readers recommended this series this month.)

Amanda Carmack: Elizabethan Mystery Series

Sarah Caudwell: Hilary Tamar Mystery Series

Maia Chance: Discreet Retrieval Agency Mystery Series

Laura Childs: Scrapbooking Mystery Series

Mindy Starns Clark: Million Dollar Mystery Series

Kate Collins: Flower Shop Mystery Series

Sheila Connolly (aka Sarah Atwell): County Cork Mystery Series

E.J. Copperman (aka Jeffrey Cohen): Haunted Guesthouse Mystery Series (Two Cozy readers recommended this series this month.)

Leighann Dobbs: Mooseamuck Island Mystery Series

Elizabeth J. Duncan: Shakespeare in the Catskills Mystery Series (Two Cozy readers recommended this series this month.)

Elizabeth Edmondson: A Man of Some Repute

Jean Flowers (aka Camille Minichino, Margaret Grace, & Ada Madison): Postmistress Mystery Series (Two Cozy readers recommended this series this month.)

Joanne Fluke: Hannah Swensen Mystery Series

Christopher Fowler: Bryant & May (Peculiar Crimes) Mystery Series (reportedly not Cozy)

Dick Francis: Stand Alones (not cozy)

Parnell Hall: Puzzle Lady Mystery Series

David Handler: Berger & Mitry Mystery Series

Charlaine Harris: Aurora Teagarden Mystery Series

B.B. Haywood: Candy Holliday Mystery Series

Julie Hyzy: White House Chef Mystery Series

Mary Lou Kirwin: Librarian Mystery Series

Joyce and Jim Lavene (aka J. J. Cook & Ellie Grant): Christmas Tree Valley Mystery Series

Catherine Lloyd: Kurland St. Mary Mystery Series

Dixie Lyle: Whiskey, Tango, and Foxtrot Mystery Series

Jenn McKinlay (aka Josie Belle & Lucy Lawrence): Hat Shop Mystery Series

Leslie Meier: Lucy Stone Mystery Series

Shirley Rousseau Murphy & Pat J.J. Murphy: Lee Fontana Mystery Series

Ann B. Ross: Miss Julia Mystery Series

Maggie Sefton: Knitting Mystery Series

Dorothy Simpson: Luke Thanet Mystery Series

Fran Stewart: ScotShop Mystery Series

Victoria Thompson: Gaslight Mystery Series

Elaine Viets: Dead-End Job Mystery Series

Lea Wait: Mainely Needlepoint Mystery Series

[If you click on the author’s name (blue) link, it will take you to his/her page on the Cozy Mystery site. The pages have all of the authors’ books listed chronologically.]

I will list the authors and series that have been recommended, but I urge you to read the comments below so you can see the reasons other Cozy Mystery readers thought these were their best reads of the month.

♦To access more Cozy Mystery Books Recommendations, click on this link♦

P.S. I usually don’t comment on your recommendations since they speak for themselves.

Trixie Belden Follow-Up

Wow! I was going to try to respond to ALL of your comments about Trixie Belden, but decided to post a quick note when I found out just how much we love Trixie Belden! Some of us loved her sooo much that pets have been named after her! Now that’s a whole lot of lovin’!

Regardless of how we got our Trixie Belden mysteries (saved our allowances to buy the books or from dads, older sisters, parents, brothers-in-law, libraries) we all seem to have great memories of the times we spent with Trixie!

Some of us are lucky, and have parents who didn’t throw out these reading treasures from our youths. Others haven’t been so lucky, and have had to try to find the books elsewhere. Some of us are saving them for our children and/or grandchildren, and some of us are making a point to share them with whole classrooms of children at a time.

Looking back, I can’t believe I didn’t introduce my daughter to Trixie. I am very sure they would have been great friends! (What was I thinking >>> or should I say Why wasn’t I thinking?)

I have read all of your comments both here on the site’s blog as well as on my Facebook page, and have annotated all of the different girl/boy detective series. There are some I have never heard of >>> Who would have guessed that Janet Lennon (from the Lennon sisters) was a girl detective?!

Thank you, ALL, for posting your comments on the Trixie Belden – Another Classic Teenage Girl Sleuth entry. Walking down memory lane has been great!

P.S. Robin, it sounds like the Mysterious Code may have been the first mystery with cooking tips!

Trixie Belden – Another Classic Teenage Girl Sleuth

Last August, we discussed a Cozy Mystery series that got many young readers interested in mysteries, myself included – Nancy Drew. It turns out that Nancy Drew is just one of the characters who turned us into what we are today: Cozy Mystery readers! Some of us started our mystery reading journey with Nancy while others started with sleuths such as the Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys, and Trixie Beldon.

The first Trixie Belden book, The Secret of the Mansion, was originally released in 1948, and new books were periodically released until 1986. The first six books were written Julie Campbell Tatham, a very real author who also wrote the similar teenager mystery series Ginny Gordon and a Rin Tin Tin novel, among other things. After that, various authors employed directly by publisher Western House, releasing an additional 33 books to bring the total Trixie Belden book list to 39!

One of the big differences between Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew appears to be that a bigger effort was made to make Trixie seem like a slightly more realistic view of a teenage girl. It was hard to imagine Nancy Drew having trouble with anything, and while this made her a figure to look up to, it also sometimes made her a bit harder to identify with than the more realistic Trixie.

In contrast, Trixie sometimes felt frustrated by her brothers (something I think anyone with siblings has felt from time to time), and despite her obvious intelligence, she had difficulty with certain school subjects >> particularly math. All of this likely goes a long way toward making Trixie feel more like a real person than the ethereal, at times almost-too-perfect Nancy Drew.

Unlike Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden hasn’t seen the same efforts to update and reinvigorate the series. Regardless of how you feel about the changes made to the Nancy Drew books to “modernize” them, this does at least make sure that a new edition is periodically released so new readers (and those of us who might be feeling a bit nostalgic) can pick up the series.

Please leave a comment below if you remember reading about Trixie’s adventures!

(Thank you, ALL, for your comments! There were so many, I thought I would post a Trixie Belden Follow-Up rather than try to respond to each of you. I hope this is OK!

Four New-to-the-Site Cozy Mystery Authors: Vickie Fee: Liv and Di in Dixie, Julianne Holmes: Clock Shop, Catherine Lloyd: Kurland St. Mary, Joyce Tremel: Brewing Trouble

It’s that time once again… time to add new authors to the Cozy Mystery site! As usual I am posting authors who Cozy Mystery readers have recommended to me. I’m always looking for new-to-me Cozy Mystery authors to try (with the hopes of adding them to my favorite authors list) so it’s always a pleasure to post authors who look really promising to me.

 Vickie Fee – Vickie Fee grew up in Memphis, but now lives in upper Michigan. She earned her degree in journalism, which she put to good use reporting in a number of small newspapers. Her Cozy Mystery series, the Liv and Di in Dixie Mystery Series, stars party planner Liv McKay and her best friend Di Souther, and is set in the fictional town of Dixie, Tennessee.

 

 Julianne Holmes – Besides being a Cozy Mystery author, Julianne Holmes is the director of a service organization for theaters in the Boston area. She writes the Clock Shop Mystery Series, starring an expert clockmaker named Ruth Clagan who lives in Massachusetts.

 

 Catherine Lloyd – Though Catherine Lloyd now lives in the United States, she was born and grew up in London, England. Lloyd writes of her birth nation in the Kurland St. Mary Mystery Series, a historical Cozy series set in the 1810s in the small English town of Kurland St. Mary. The series features Miss Lucy Harrington as its sleuth. Major Robert Kurland helps Lucy with her sleuthing.

 

Joyce Tremel – A former police secretary, Joyce Tremel now writes the Brewing Trouble Mystery Series, starring Maxine “Max” O’Hara, a certified brewmaster and owner of the Allegheny Brew House in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. With that in mind, it’s also no surprise that Joyce is herself a Pittsburgh native!

These authors (and many, many more!) can be found on the Cozy Mystery site.

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