It’s been a bit longer than I would have liked, but I’m back at expanding the Most Popular and Recommended Series list, which is composed of both my own personal favorites that I’m rereading as well as series that Cozy Mystery site readers have suggested in the monthly recommendations posts. This month, I’m trying to read several novels – the first of which is Kathleen Bridge‘s Hampton Home & Garden Mystery Series. I read the first book in the series, Better Homes and Corpses.

The sleuth of the novel, Meg Barrett, left her editor job at a top home and gardens magazine in New York City after learning that her boyfriend/boss was cheating on her. Naturally, this leaves her free to pursue her true passion – home restoration and decoration for the wealthy living in the Hamptons of New York.

Since she’s still growing her business and trying to get more connections among the Hamptons Elite, Meg lucks out when she runs into her old college roommate, Jillian Spenser, who happens to be the daughter of the “Queen Mother of the Hamptons”, Caroline Spenser. But when Meg goes to visit the Spenser estate, she arrives to find Caroline Spenser dead and Jillian injured. Unfortunately, despite Jillian surviving, she appears to have come down with a case of short term memory amnesia – which her doctors consider relatively expected, due to both a blow to a head and the trauma of her mother’s death.

This might have ended Meg’s connection to the murder, but between her connection to one of the victims and a request from another appraiser to help catalog the estate to determine if anything was missing in the wake of the murder, Meg quickly finds herself further embroiled in the mystery. Fortunately, Meg has law enforcement in her blood, as her father is a retired police detective.

The novel spends a fair amount of time on its specific focus point, interior decorating and home improvement, so fans of those particular focuses will definitely find a lot to enjoy in the novel. There’s also a strong romance element.

Kathleen Bridge also writes the By the Sea Mystery Series, which stars Liz Holt, who works at a family owned inn on Melbourne Beach in Florida.

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PS: For readers who are fans of recipes, this series includes a few at the end of each novel – as well as home improvement tips to fit with the “Home & Garden” theme!

Recently I was surprised when I discovered that I had not yet included Agatha Christie’s Poirot in my posts about the the Most Popular and Recommended Series that I have been compiling. So, I corrected that oversight in this entry. At the same time, I also saw that I had not yet included the Miss Marple Mysteries in that list. When I first discovered this oversight, I had a hard time deciding which of Christie’s characters to write about first. The first Poirot book was written over ten years earlier than the first Miss Marple book so I did the Poirot series first. But, although I have enjoyed reading the Poirot books and I believe he is a great character, I have to admit that Miss Marple is my favorite of the two.

I have written about Miss Marple several times before. Mostly when discussing the different television versions of Miss Marple. Such this post, this one, and this one where  I talk about my favorite actress portraying Miss Marple >> Joan Hickson.

The first book in the Miss Marple Mysteries series is Murder at the Vicarage. As the book begins, in Miss Marple’s small home town of St. Mary Mead, we meet the narrator, the Vicar, his wife and his nephew, and a number of other local characters, including Miss Marple. Before long, there is, as the title suggests, a murder at the Vicarage. The Vicar takes  a particular interest in solving the murder, so we gain much insight into what the police (including Inspector Slack and the Chief Constable, Colonel Melchett) are doing to solve the mystery.

Upon re-reading this book in order to write this blog, I was surprised to see how small a part Miss Marple plays until fairly near the end. She is introduced to us in a scene near the beginning of the book, but then we don’t see her again until about the 20% mark of the book. After that, we only meet her sporadically. Until very near the end, it would be fair to say that Miss Marple is not the main character of the book.

Miss Marple is introduced as an elderly spinster who takes a very strong interest in human nature. In fact, she declares that the study of human nature is her hobby:

You see,” she began at last, “living alone, as I do, in a rather out-of-the-way part of the world, one has to have a hobby. There is, of course, woolwork, and Guides, and Welfare, and sketching, but my hobby is— and always has been— Human Nature. So varied— and so very fascinating. And, of course, in a small village, with nothing to distract one, one has such ample opportunity for becoming what I might call proficient in one’s study. One begins to class people, quite definitely, just as though they were birds or flowers, group so-and-so, genus this, species that. Sometimes, of course, one makes mistakes, but less and less as time goes on.

Miss Marple has solved some local mysteries in the past, but she has never tackled something as large as murder before — and she jumps at the chance to test herself:

But I have always wondered whether, if some day a really big mystery came along, I should be able to do the same thing. I mean— just solve it correctly. Logically, it ought to be exactly the same thing. After all, a tiny working model of a torpedo is just the same as a real torpedo.

Needless to say, Miss Marple passes the test with flying colors!

Miss Marple is a truly great and interesting character. Her knowledge of human nature helps here to solve this murder (and many others in the future). She draws on a vast experience gained by observing human behavior, and she solves her mysteries by starting from the point of view that almost anyone is capable of almost anything.  I was particularly struck by this passage wherein she talks about something she learned from her Aunt Fanny:

I remember a saying of my Great Aunt Fanny’s. I was sixteen at the time and thought it particularly foolish…. She used to say: ‘The young people think the old people are fools; but the old people know the young people are fools!’

How can you not enjoy a sleuth who speaks such wisdom?

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I’m once again returning to the Most Popular and Recommended Series list that I have been compiling for quite some time now, this time focusing on Amanda Lee‘s Embroidery Mystery Series. Specifically, I read The Quick and the Thread, the first entry in the series.

The Quick and the Thread is definitely made in the mold of the modern Cozy mystery, as the sleuth, former accountant Marcy Singer, has decided to give up her crumbling professional and romantic lives in her old home of California to put down new roots in a smaller, “Cozier” community, in this case Tallulah Falls, Oregon. What’s more, she’s decided that the best business venture for this small community is a hobby store catering to her own personal passion, embroidery.

Unfortunately, as with all too many small start up businesses in small towns that normally seem to have low crime rates, her financial success is quickly threatened by the repeated murders occurring on, near, or related to her property. In this case, the previous tenant of the shop attempts to approach Marcy at her grand opening party, but she avoids him because he seems obviously inebriated… which turns out to be possibly more than just alcohol, as he turns up dead in her storage room the following morning, having left a cryptic message scratched in the wall. Naturally, this isn’t the only corpse that will turn up associated with Marcy’s shop in one way or another!

Tallulah Falls feels like a nice, comfortable community with plenty more stories to tell, and the fact that the sleuth is a genuine outsider instead of a “small town girl getting back to her hometown from the big city” definitely gives more opportunities for her to be uninformed about relationships among the townspeople without feeling like she’s been strangely out of the loop. Fans of romance subplots will likely also be satisfied by one of several possible suitors, though I’d wager that particular plot thread won’t see resolution for at least a few more books.

A “themed” Cozy tends to either go very heavy or very light on the theming, and I’d say that The Quick and the Thread leans a bit more toward the less end than the more. Though this may be my own reaction, as embroidery is one theme that I personally have some experience with, so my personal tolerance for going “off the rails” to discuss the theme instead of the mystery might be a bit higher here than in some other cases. That said, I think that even readers without a particular interest in embroidery or other similar crafts shouldn’t have any issue getting through the themed parts.

I’d say that overall, The Quick and the Thread is a great start to what feels like on of the “classic” series of modern Cozies. If you’re interested in a quaint, small-town American Cozy set in modern day with a focus on a embroidery and featuring light romantic elements, this will be “right up your alley”.

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P.S. As Gayle Trent she writes the Daphne Martin Cake Mystery Series and the Myrtle Crumb Mystery Series. As Gayle Leeson she writes the Down South Café Mystery Series.