As regular readers no doubt know, I’ve been doing a long-running monthly series on specific mystery series, most of which have been recommended by site readers. This month I’ll be featuring Leslie Budewitz‘s Spice Shop Mystery Series by reading the first book in the series, Assault and Pepper. The second Cozy mystery series by Budewitz, this is a fairly established series, with this first entry coming out more than eight years ago and with a total of seven books in the series.

40s-something divorcee Pepper Reece is the owner of the Seattle Spice Shop, which she started running about a year before the beginning of the novel, so she’s already somewhat established by the time the story begins. Her divorce is a result of her husband’s affair with a coworker, while her change in career from a law firm HR manager is due to the failure of the firm. Moreover, she is a life-long resident of Seattle, she’s an even more established part of her community. Her ex-husband is also part of the police force, giving her a connection to local law enforcement – though one she doesn’t really want to call upon if she can avoid it.

The theming in this novel is quite strong – at the very beginning, there is a significant stretch where Pepper and her employees talk about their new recipe ideas for a new spice-themed Fall spice blends, for example. This will no doubt be a big draw for fans of teas and spices.

The mystery also kicks off relatively early, though it does take some time to be revealed as a definite murder. When Pepper discovers the body of a panhandler named Doc. Doc, who was new to the area, had a cup of the Seattle Spice Shop found near him. He had already formed a bit of an impression as a troublesome outsider, coming into conflict with another panhandler and with one of Pepper’s employees. The case is originally assumed a death by natural causes, as Doc had been obviously quite old. when that employee is arrested, Pepper becomes more directly involved in the case to help clear her name.

Overall, this novel gives a good sense of atmosphere to the “Seattle Public Market” – likely a reference to the real Pike Place Market due to several references to street locations in the book. It also serves the theming admirably, spending significant time discussing various spice applications and weaving it into many otherwise normal mystery conversations.

As mentioned above, Leslie Budewitz is also the author of another Cozy Mystery Series, the Food Lovers’ Village Mystery 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.

PS: For fans of recipes, this novel does include a recipe section at the back including a number of seasoning and spice-forward recipes.

Today, I’ll be using my long-running series highlighting specific mystery series recommended by readers as an excuse to go back and read another series by a specific modern author that I’m particular fond of, Laura Bradford. Specifically, I’m going to be taking a look at the first entry in her A Friend For Hire Mystery Series, titled A Plus One for Murder.

As a rather prolific author who has been writing mysteries for about two decades but doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in getting tied down to a single series, Bradford has a number of short mystery series for any reader to jump right in and enjoy from the beginning. This is her most recent, and one of the most modern Cozies I have highlighted here, with this book first being published in 2021.

At the beginning, this particular Cozy starts out with a bit of a subversion for the genre – it starts not as the sleuth begins a new venture that has been their dream business, but at its unsuccessful conclusion, as Emma Westlake has recently been fighting off the death of her travel booking job as more and more of her previous corporate clients began handling it in-house.

Fortunately, Emma already has something of a side job, having been hired by an elderly man eighteen months earlier to provide some companionship to his wife Dottie at a weekly tea get-together in exchange for a small fee. When she mentions her problems to Dottie, the elderly woman suggests that she instead begin expanding this side business, essentially becoming a friend-for-hire. At first, Emma isn’t comfortable with the idea – but she needs the money badly, so when Dottie starts lining up jobs to accompany seniors to dance lessons for her, she quickly starts taking them.

Unfortunately, one of her clients turns out to be a local writer/freelance journalist with a reputation as a conspiracy theorist named Brian who hires Emma to clap at an open-mic reading of his latest work – a poem that he claims won’t get any applause, as most of those there to hear it will want to kill him by the time he finishes reading. Suffice to say, Brian was right about that at least, as he drops dead right halfway through his reading.

I really enjoyed reading this Cozy – it has a good mix of modern Cozy trappings and slight subversions that help keep the mix a bit fresher than it might otherwise feel stale. The concept of a friend for hire sounds a bit odd at first, but it certainly gives many opportunities for the sleuth to get involved with a number of people, widening the possibilities for both “flavor” characters and potential victims and suspects in the future.

This mystery also has the big benefit of the actual murder coming in relatively early – as I have mentioned before, I’m primarily coming to Cozies for a mystery, so as much as I like the ambiance, I like it when they get to the crime relatively quickly. This was excellent in that regard, with my Kindle showing only about 10% when the murder occurred.

Laura Bradford is also the author of the Amish Mystery Series, the Emergency Dessert Squad Mystery Series (which I have already written about in another post), the Tobi Tobias Mystery Series, and the Jenkins & Burns Mystery Series. As Elizabeth Lynn Casey, Laura Bradford is also the author of the Southern Sewing Circle Mystery 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.

Sometimes I come across a writer who is such a compelling storyteller that I just have to try her other series. When I was looking for a series to try as part of my  Most Popular and Recommended Cozy Mystery Series posts, I found one of Julia Buckley’s series, the Hungarian Tea House Mysteries, and am I glad I did. And, it turns out that this is the second series of hers that is part of this series of posts. So, that’s a long-winded introduction just to say that Julia Buckley’s Death in a Budapest Butterfly is the book I’m highlighting this month.

Death in a Budapest Butterfly is written in the first person by Hana Keller who is the soon to be twenty seven year old who runs Maggies’ Tea House, along with her mother and grandmother. As the name of the series suggests, the tea house is very Hungarian. Both Hana’s mother and grandmother were immigrants, and the tea house sits in a fictional very Hungarian neighborhood, and the story begins with the three proprietors of the tea house preparing for a meeting of the almost wholly Hungarian women’s group, the Magyars. 

Suffice it to say that before long there is a mysterious death in the tea house which is soon determined to be a murder. Hana becomes a sort of liaison with the handsome detective, helping him understand the ins and outs of this immigrant society. She also gathers evidence on her own.

In the course of the story, we learn quite a lot about the Hungarian immigrant society. The author, Julia Buckley, comes by this information quite naturally, as her Author’s Note, at the end of the book describes. Her paternal grandparents were both born in what was then part of Hungary, at the beginning of the twentieth century.

You know, it is not unusual nowadays for a Cozy Mystery to get all of the elements right: an attractive (and often) young sleuth, a theme that creates a small close-knit community that transports us into a world with which we are not familiar, a handsome detective providing at least the possibility of a bit of romance, a bunch of unusual recipes, and even a couple of cute cats. Unfortunately, however, it is more uncommon than I would like for all of these elements to be woven together into a compelling story that creates a real page-turning read that is so hard to put down. Death in a Budapest Butterfly is one of the good ones for sure.

So, of course, I give Death in a Budapest Butterfly a wholehearted and enthusiastic recommendation.  

Julia Buckley also writes, as Veronica Bond, the Dinner and a Murder Mystery 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.