Most Popular and Recommended Mystery Series

Ginger Bolton: Deputy Donut Mystery Series

May 13, 2020

Do you sometimes read a mystery book and find yourself just lost in the book so much that the characters, the setting and the overall tone of the book is so enjoyable that you are not even trying to solve the mystery? This just happened to me when I read The Survival of the Fritters, the first book in Ginger Bolton’s Deputy Donut Mystery Series which is the next book in my quest to cover some of the most popular and recommended mystery series. When I got near to finishing this book, I suddenly realized that the mystery was being revealed, and I had not even really tried to solve it myself!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with the mystery in this book — far from it! Maybe it was just the mood I was in, but I was enjoying the writing and being in the small northern Wisconsin town of Fallingbrook so much, the ending just kind of crept up on me.

The story opens in the Deputy Donut donut shop. Emily Westhill, our sleuth, and her father-in-law, Tom Westhill (who was the ex-chief of police of the town) run the Deputy Donut shop. Emily is actually the widow of Tom’s son Alec, who was a police detective in the town until he was shot and killed on duty. Emily and Alec were only married four years before he was killed, and Emily is still in her twenties.

The little donut shop is frequented by many of the town’s people including quite a few members of the police force. Also often there are the Knitpickers, a group who, not surprisingly, are knitters. On this particular day, however, one of the regular Knitpickers, Georgia, was not there. By the end of the day, the Knitpickers had returned to the Deputy Donut shop in order to get Emily to go with them over to Georgia’s house to see what was wrong with her. Being a Cozy Mystery, of course, before long a body was discovered and Emily begins her side job of sleuthing!

The town has a lot of charm. Reading about Emily and her friends reminded me about why I enjoy Cozies so much. Emily has a wonderful little house. And she has a cat with the same name as her shop — Deputy Donut, which she shortens to “Dep” most of the time. Living right behind her in an identical house is Lois who has a long connection to Georgia. So Lois helps Emily with her snooping about. The town has a number of characters who could be involved with the murder(s), so if you are needing to practice your sleuthing skills, the clues and the suspects abound in this book.

But, as I said earlier, I was just along for the ride in this one — for once I left the solving of the mystery to the book’s sleuth! How about you, does this ever happen to you? (I don’t solve most of the mysteries in the books I read, but I sure do enjoy trying!)

By the way, the author has another very popular series that she wrote as Janet Bolin, the Threadville Mystery Series.

P.S. As always, if you are interested in reading some of the other entries about highly recommended Cozy Mystery series, you can find them at the Most Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page on the site.

Daryl Wood Gerber: Cookbook Nook Mystery Series

February 25, 2020

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

January 23, 2020

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.

Vivien Chien: Noodle Shop Mystery Series

December 28, 2019

First off, I want to wish everyone a happy holiday! I’m having a good holiday myself – definitely enjoying my daughter’s visit. (I don’t have time to read much around the holidays, so this is actually a post I wrote a few weeks ago. So I might still be a bit slower on approving comments for a while longer.)

So, the Cozy I read this month was the first entry in Vivien Chien‘s Noodle Shop Mystery Series, titled Death by Dumpling.

In many ways, I would call this a very traditional modern-style Cozy. Half-Taiwanese, half-English Lana Lee has recently come off of a bad breakup, as well as quitting her job that she wasn’t happy at, and is spending time working at her family’s noodle house until she can pull her life back together. Though she hadn’t seen herself working there in her late twenties, she’s making the best of things until the area’s landlord is found dead – apparently killed by an allergic reaction caused by the dumplings she brought to him for his regular lunch delivery.

Naturally, there’s an irritating-but-hunky detective investigating the case, many neighbors all with their own theories (and varying levels of eccentricity), and unusual behavior on the part of the bereaved family and many others in the community.

So far, no doubt this all sounds like very familiar ground. Fortunately, what really helps make this book feel different from the many other Cozies like it is the interesting and unusual backdrop for a Cozy in Cleveland’s Asian Village.

While I still love the traditional quaint villages of England and New England alike, every so often it is nice to see a slightly different backdrop for otherwise comfortable Cozy elements, and setting the story in an area that feels culturally different feels like something of a breath of fresh air.

At the same time, many of the useful conventions of the Cozy genre can still apply – while the community might be part of a “big city” like Cleveland, the residents of the Asia Village have their own distinct community that an outsider (like the police, investigating the death of one of the residents) might find harder to penetrate.

Altogether, Death by Dumpling brings together a mystery that has a unique setting for the Cozy genre, one that (at least to me) feels as authentic as the Amish villages, New England fishing towns, and English countryside communities that are more often the hallmark of the Cozy subgenre. At the same time, it retains enough of the “Cozy” elements that I know we’re all looking for to help relax with a good book. If you’re looking for a familiar Cozy with an interestingly different sort of backdrop from the usual Cozy village, then I think that you’ll find something to like in Death by Dumpling.

If you want to read some of the other entries about highly recommended Cozy Mystery series, you can see them on the Most Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page.

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