The Cozy Mystery List Blog

Cozy Mystery (and Other Favorite) Books, Movies, and TV

Carlene O’Connor: Irish Village Mystery Series

I just finished reading Murder in an Irish Village the first book in the next series that I am highlighting as one of my posts about the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery series.  This book, written by Carlene O’Connor, follows Siobhán O’Sullivan, the young (she is in her early twenties) and beautiful heroine sleuth. Siobhán (pronounced Shi-vahn according to the very useful “Pronunciations and Glossary” provided at the beginning of the book), has been the adult guidance for the rest of the O’Sullivan six — her brothers and sisters — since her parents’ untimely death in a car accident that happened a year before the story begins. Her brother James is older but for various reasons is not the guardian of his and Siobhán’s younger siblings.

The story is set in the small Irish village of Kilbane, County Cork. The O’Sullivan clan runs a small bistro that is open for breakfast and lunch. Siobhán has given up (at least temporarily) her dream of moving to Dublin to pursue her higher education because somebody needs to take care of her younger siblings.

Soon after the story begins, there is a body found in the bistro. James is quickly determined to be the main suspect, and the sleuthing begins with Siobhán following every lead in her attempt to discover the murderer and clear her family’s name.

If ever there were a cozy setting for a mystery series, the small village of Kilbane is it. This is a truly small town. Everybody knows everybody else and has done so all their lives. But, as Siobhán discovers in the course of her sleuthing, despite having known just about everyone in the town for her whole life, almost all of them harbor a secret or two that may or may not be relevant to discovering who the real killer is.

In the story, Siobhán is romantically pursued by two handsome young men. One is the local policeman (garda), and the other is a mysterious stranger from America. This element of the book is treated rather lightly — the romance is more potential than real and it never dominates the storyline (which I, at least, appreciated).

Our intrepid sleuth finds herself in quite a few difficult situations since she insists on turning over every rock in the village and discovers so many secrets her fellow townspeople have been keeping. Some of these situations are quite funny — when she is investigating the local undertaker, for example, there is a scene where I just had to laugh out loud. 

I really liked Murder in an Irish Village and I can’t recommend it highly enough if you are looking for a modern Cozy set in a picturesque location with a real page-turning and satisfying mystery and with some very likable characters.

I have to warn you all, however, that the book contains a bit of strong language and some (non-graphic) adult situations.

By the way, as I just mentioned in a post the other day, Carlene O’Connor is starting a new series, also set in Ireland, the Home to Ireland Mystery Series.

You can see the other entries I have written about the most popular and recommended series here.

Daryl Wood Gerber: Cookbook Nook Mystery Series

Final Sentence (A Cookbook Nook Mystery 1) This month, I read the first entry in the Cookbook Nook Mystery Series by Daryl Wood Gerber (aka Avery Aames), titled Final Sentence. This is yet another entry in my (mostly) monthly series about the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery series.

Marketing expert Jenna Hart has returned to her home town of Crystal Cove, a small coastal town in California known for both water sports like skiing and surfing as well as crafting stores for things like knitting, sewing, and embroidery, after the death of her husband left her with little desire to remain in San Francisco at her advertising job. Still, she’s going to be keeping her business skills busy enough, as she’s helping her Aunt Vera open a culinary themed bookshop and cafe.

To that end, she’s invited her old college roommate, celebrity chef Desiree Devine, to do a cookbook signing at the cafe’s grand opening. Unfortunately, Desiree brings more than just her autographing hand to the opening – she brings drama as well, in the form of her dodgy boyfriend/director, her jealous sister, and her self-absorbed masseur. Oh, and a potential motive for Jenna herself to take a sudden dislike Desiree, as the aforementioned jealous sister lets slip that Jenna’s deceased husband may or may not have had an affair with Desiree at some point.

With all that baggage, it’s hardly any surprise when Desiree turns up dead, concealed in a sand mermaid sculpture on the beach. Naturally, Jenna is both shocked and pained when she finds the body – though hurt by the thought that her friend may have had an affair with her husband, she never would have hurt her, and hadn’t even had a chance to clear the air on whether or not such an affair had even occurred yet. But the  – a motive made more believable when the local police chief’s own mother indicates she saw Jenna and Desiree speaking on the very beach the corpse was found on.

Fortunately, Jenna has people in her corner as well. Her Aunt Vera, her father – a former FBI analyst – and even the local police chief, who was something of a protege of her father’s, all seem less than convinced that Jenna committed the crime. Still, that doesn’t make Jenna feel any more secure, and it isn’t long before she’s investigating herself – not only to find out who killer her friend, but also to see if her friend had had an affair with her husband.

Final Sentence may not exactly break the mold for modern Cozies, but it certainly does a good job of making a nice, pleasant setting for the characters to live in. At the same time, it gives enough attention to the murder and introduces new clues enough to keep the investigation element engaging. If you’re interested in a culinary-themed Cozy with a coastal setting and a decent mystery, this might be just what you’re looking for.

If you’d like to see other entries about some of the most recommended Cozy Mystery authors, be sure to check out the Most Popular and Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page on my site.

PS: For those who love recipes, this one does include a number of them at the end – deserts, in this case!

Julia Buckley: A Writer’s Apprentice Mystery Series

A Dark and Stormy Murder (A Writer's Apprentice Mystery Book 1) This month I read A Dark and Stormy Murder which is the first book in Julia Buckley’s A Writer’s Apprentice Mystery Series. This post is another in my (mostly) monthly series about the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery series.

The book introduces us to Lena London, a young want-to-be author who is fresh out of school and also fresh out of a long term romantic relationship. As the story begins, Lena receives a call from one of her best friends, Allison, who lives in Blue Lake, Indiana. Allison happens to be in a Saturday morning knitting group with Camille Graham, Lena’s favorite author and idol. Allison had shared Lena’s unpublished novel (which was inspired by Camille’s writing) and Camille had loved it! Now Camille has a job proposal for Allison.

Before you know it, Lena has a job with Camille to work as her writing assistant (hence the “apprentice” in the series’ name) and has moved, with her cat Lestrade, to beautiful Blue Lake, Indiana to live with Camille in her old and mysterious mansion.

Suffice it to say that Lena is more than over the moon to be working with her idol in a job that is too good to be called her dream job – Lena had never dreamed so big!

Being a Cozy Mystery, before long and as expected, Lena discovers a body on the shore of Blue Lake not far from Camille’s house. This gives Lena the chance to get acquainted with the local (handsome) and available police detective, Doug. On her first day in Blue Lake, Lena also meets Camille’s mysterious (and also handsome) neighbor, Sam West.

Sam is a rich investor from New York City who is living in Blue Lake to avoid the spotlight of the big city since his estranged wife is missing under mysterious circumstances and Sam is generally suspected of having committed foul play towards her. As Lena gets to know Sam, she joins a very short list of people (which includes Camille) who believe that Sam had nothing to do with his wife’s disappearance. 

So the book entails Lena and Camille, sometimes with Doug’s assistance, trying to solve the mysterious murder near Camille’s house. And Lena also gets involved in trying to help Sam solve the mystery of his estranged wife’s disappearance.

With two mysteries to solve, a mysterious old mansion on the lake, strange noises around the house in the middle of the night, two handsome potential suitors, a cat and two dogs, and a charming small midwestern town, this book and series have just about all the elements that one could expect or want in a lovely Cozy Mystery read. I found A Dark and Stormy Murder to be a fun and light read — just the kind of book I like to curl up with on a chilly, rainy winter day. 

I must warn you, however, that the book does not resolve all the mysteries that are presented. You will have to read at least one more book in the series to find out all the secrets. Since I enjoyed this book so much, I don’t have a problem with this, even though I’m not crazy about multiple book storyline arcs in my Cozies. I’m looking forward to finding out what Lena and Camille discover in the other books in the series. 

If you’d like to see other entries about some of the most recommended Cozy Mystery authors, be sure to check out the Most Popular and Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page on my site.

Sheila Connolly: County Cork Mystery Series

Buried In a Bog (County Cork series Book 1) This month, for my continuing look at the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery series, I’ll be looking at Sheila Connolly‘s County Cork Mystery Series, a good example of a modern Cozy series. Usually I look at an author’s oldest (and usually longest-running) series, but in this case, I’m looking at this one instead of Connolly’s longer running Orchard Mystery Series because I’ve gotten more recommendations for this particular series. The specific entry I read was the first entry in the series, Buried In a Bog.

At the beginning of the novel, Boston-born Maura is visiting her recently-deceased grandmother’s home village of Leap (pronounced Lep) as a result of a deathbed promise. Raised by her grandmother and with relatively little in the way of career prospects in Boston (Maura is a bartender and waitress, a profession she can take up pretty much anywhere), Maura is quickly charmed by the small town. Taking a job at Sullivan’s Pub, Maura decides to spend a bit of time in Ireland getting to know her grandmother’s home town and the people her grandmother had still been corresponding with by mail before returning home to the States.

Naturally, this being a Cozy, it doesn’t take too long before bodies start turning up. Still, the murders in this particular mystery are a bit less central than in many Cozies. Instead, the first corpse discovered in this particular mystery is an older one, a corpse of an unknown individual found in the bog, apparently there for at least fifty years or as much as a century. It isn’t until the halfway point in the novel that another body turns up, and even then the story doesn’t revolve around it as much as in many mysteries, as the protagonist isn’t the person who stumbles upon it.

As a result, much of the novel feels much more relaxed and laid back than many mysteries. This shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise – one of the main things Maura notices about the rural Irish lifestyle she suddenly finds herself in is that the people there seem to take things a lot slower too, being more content to just let things happen than she’s used to as an American city girl. Maura also accrues a surprising amount of things without really needing to ask for them, just off the kindness of locals – a place to live, a car, and a phone all more or less fall into her lap with no obvious effort. Admittedly, this is likely more of a Cozy thing than an Irish thing – it seems like aimless youngish women in Cozies always have good luck finding jobs, residences, and new close friends!

Overall, Buried In a Bog is a very well-written Cozy with a laid back, easygoing atmosphere. If you’re more interested in a relaxing slice of Irish village life than in being dropped immediately into a mystery, this is likely a good Cozy for you.

Sheila Connolly also writes the Orchard Mystery Series, starring an orchard owner in Massachusetts, the Victorian Village Mystery Series, starring a boutique employee in Maryland, the Museum Mystery Series, starring a museum fundraiser in Pennsylvania, and the Relatively Dead Mystery Series, starring a sleuth who can see ghosts. As Sarah Atwell, she also writes the Glassblowing Mystery Series, starring a glass artist in Tucson.

If you’re interested in reading more of these brief revisits of some of the more popular Cozy Mystery Series that I’ve written in the past, you can find them at the Most Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page on my site.

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