It’s once again time for me to continue my now-very-long-running series highlighting one of the many Cozy Mystery Series recommended by site readers. This month, I’ll be reading the first entry in Jana DeLeon‘s Miss Fortune Mystery Series, Louisiana Longshot.

In many ways, this is definitely a book that really stretches the definition of a Cozy, or even a ‘mystery’ to a certain extent. Certainly the protagonist is nothing like most of the sleuths you see in most Cozies. Fortune Redding is a CIA agent who is involved in a lot of serious (and violent) espionage activities. Most Cozy detectives have difficulty with the more ‘physical’ part of the sleuthing trade, particularly confronting the villain. That certainly won’t be the case for Fortune!

That said, in this one instance she is in a bit over her head. Having recently bungled a job and inadvertently ‘removing’ an international arms dealer in the process, she finds herself with a bounty on her head, and the CIA decides her best course of action is to lay low for a while posing as a librarian in the small town of Sinful, Louisiana. Probably not standard CIA operating procedure, but whatever works I guess!

Sinful, Louisiana, is where many of the standard Cozy features do begin to appear. Fortune actually has a cover story very similar, to many Cozy sleuths – a remote relative who has come to town to sort out the belongings of her late great-aunt. Naturally, the town is full of colorful characters, interesting local scenery and businesses, a geriatric hound dog named Bones… and a human bone that said dog unearths from the river minutes after Fortune arrives in town. Equally naturally, this changes Fortune’s itinerary somewhat, as suddenly there is a reason for the local Sinful police to have questions about her identity, so she decides she needs to help them out a bit and get the whole ‘corpse’ thing cleared up as quickly as possible.

While I cannot recommend this particular entry to those who are looking for a traditional Cozy experience with a knitting-loving baker who is returning to her home town to fulfill her childhood dream of opening a pet supplies store, there is still a lot to enjoy in Louisiana Longshot. There are plenty of familiar elements still present. The main difference is the sleuth herself, as much of the setting otherwise fits well within the Cozy mold. On another final note, I don’t normally discuss price, but in this one case it bears mentioning – the Kindle version of Louisiana Longshot is available for free, and as far as I can tell, this isn’t a temporary sale but a permanent pricing. So if you’re interested in a mystery that weaves together traditional Cozy elements and a decidedly non-traditional sleuth, I’d recommend giving Louisiana Longshot a try.

As always, if you want to read more of these brief discussions 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.

Today, as part of my very long-running series on highly recommended Cozy Mystery reader suggestions, I’ll be discussing Hooked on Murder, the first in Betty Hechtman‘s Crotchet Mystery Series.

Molly Pink is the events planner for a local bookstore. When the novel opens, she is going to return a set of crochet hooks to Ellen Sheridan’s house, which had been left behind at the bookstore after a crochet group meeting held at the bookstore.

One of my favorite elements of this book is that it literally opens with the crime – the very first scene is Molly finding the body, a very nice contrast to many Cozies, which can sometimes take a very significant portion of the page count to reach the point where it really becomes a ‘mystery’. Come to think of it, it’s actually a rare opener in any era of mysteries – though very welcome in this case! As I’m sure I have mentioned many times, I definitely like it when a book emphasizes the ‘mystery’ part of ‘Cozy Mysteries’, and starting with the murder discovery on page one certainly does that!

There are definitely a number of other unusual elements to this story as well, making it feel almost like a middle-of-series entry instead of the first. For one thing, Molly is already dating tall/dark/handsome police detective Barry, though the relationship isn’t going well. and has been well-established at her current employment for some time at the beginning of the novel. I actually found myself checking to make sure I had started at the right entry in the series at one point!

Molly is also a bit older than most Cozy sleuths, which now seem to generally trend toward the younger side – 30s-ish feeling like a fairly good recent average. Instead, Molly is older, in her late 40s, a somewhat-recent widow with grown children.

Another unusual element is that Molly doesn’t start the novel as an avid enthusiast of the featured hobby. Instead, she has an interest in crochet, but has never learned how, and only becomes really introduced to it during the course of the novel.

All told, if you’re looking for a “modern Cozy” that bucks many of the “modern Cozy” trends, including having a more mystery-first approach, I recommend picking up Hooked On Murder!

PS: For crochet or cooking enthusiasts, there are several additions at the end of the book – a crochet pattern and several recipes, in this case.

As always, if you want to read more of these brief discussions 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.

Well, it’s that time of the month again – time for me to highlight another novel in my long-running series of books recommended by Cozy Mystery readers. Today I’ll be writing about Death in Castle Dark, the first in the A Dinner and a Murder Mystery Series, which is another series written by Julia Buckley. Unfortunately, this is one of those situations where you might not immediately realize this by looking at the cover of the book, as she was writing here as Veronica Bond. Yes, we’re dealing with a long-running frustration of mine, an author with a much-less used pseudonym. I’ve already written two of this author’s series (the Hungarian Tea House Mystery Series and the Writer’s Apprentice Mystery Series) but, since this book was released under another name, many readers might not be aware of the existence of this short series – which would be a real shame, because I definitely enjoyed this outing as well.

Anyway! Enough about my little ‘pet peeve’ regarding pseudonyms.

As the novel begins, actress Nora Blake has just gotten a new job – working at Castle Dark, a murder mystery themed dinner event where customers spend the night enjoying both a good meal and attempt to solve an interesting ‘murder mystery’. The job isn’t ideal – the pay isn’t great, and Wood Glen is a bit more remote from Chicago than Nora would like, but it does come with room and board, which is certainly a strong incentive for a young actress without a steady job like Nora. However, she’s quickly sold on the job, which is certainly heavy on melodrama, but also flexes the cast’s improv skills. The naturally, the cast of the dinner all know each other well, but many of the customers are frequent repeat visitors as well.

Unsurprisingly, this being a Cozy, it doesn’t take long at the new job before something goes terribly wrong – a real murder occurs, as Nora discovers the very actually dead body of one of her actor colleagues during her second performance night. Naturally, despite the victim being generally well-liked, it turns out that there are plenty of people both in the cast and in the nearby town, who might have had reasons to want him gone.

One thing I particularly noted with particular eagerness was that a series of simple diagrams for the Castle Dark floor plans at the beginning of the book, complete with secret passages. For a reader such as myself who puts a high premium on the mystery of a Cozy, this is a really great way for an author to indicate that these sort of details will be important to the story – in other words, a lot of thought probably went into the mystery! As a fan of “classics” of the mystery genre from authors like Doyle and Christie, I really love this sort of thing.

All told, this is a great mystery that really focuses on the ‘mystery’ element. There are definitely plenty of flavor elements – the castle is a great classic sort of setting, the characters are all interesting, as well as discussions about the acting roles. However, it’s really the mystery that takes the star in Death in Castle Dark.

Today I’ll be writing about yet another highly recommended Cozy by site readers, in this case the first entry in Ellen Byron‘s Vintage Cookbook Mystery Series, and as always I will be starting with the first entry, Bayou Book Thief.

Regular site readers are likely aware that I have already featured two other series by Ellen Byron – first, the Cajun Country Mystery Series and second, the Catering Hall Mystery Series, written under the pen name Maria DiRico. Well, that’s no surprise – after all, this is the “most popular and recommended series”, and these have all been very highly recommended series over the years!

This particular series stars Ricki James, 28 year old widow restarting her life in her home city of New Orleans after the death of her actor husband and the disastrous ending of her last job after her previous employer was for a Ponzi scheme. Ricki hopes to be part of the opening of the ‘Bon Vee Culinary House Museum’ by running the museum’s gift shop, Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware. The Bon Vee Museum celebrates the legendary (fictional) restauranteur Genevieve “Vee” Charbonnet (based on real-world figure Ella Brennan). This really highlights one of the strengths of this book – while some details might be changed, it really takes advantage of the local flavor of Louisiana and particularly New Orleans. So many Cozies are set in small rustic towns that a change of pace to a big city can be very interesting – particularly one with as much history and as specific a culture as New Orleans.

There are few downsides to this new dream job for Ricki, and she quickly proves to get along well with almost all of her fellow employees, a colorful cast of eccentric tour guides and museum staff… with one big exception in curmudgeonly tour guide, Franklin. There are many of Ricki’s fellow employees (and quite a few others outside the Museum) who feel the same way, so no one is particularly upset when Franklin is caught trying to steal shop merchandise and is promptly fired. Naturally, this being a Cozy, it isn’t long before Franklin turns up again – dead in a box that should contain donated books.

As I have for other the other series I’ve written about by Ellen Byron, I would say that the quality of the writing is really the biggest draw to this book. If you’re looking for an extremely well written Cozy with an interesting setting that isn’t a small town or village, I strongly recommend Bayou Book Thief. 

As always, if you want to read more of these brief discussions 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.

PS: For those vintage food fans out there, this book does include several recipes at the end featuring vintage dishes