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

Laura Bradford: A Friend For Hire Mystery Series

June 23, 2023

A Plus One for Murder (A Friend for Hire Mystery Book 1) 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.

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Julia Buckley: Hungarian Tea House Mysteries

May 19, 2023

Death in a Budapest Butterfly (A HUNGARIAN TEA HOUSE MYSTERY Book 1) 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.

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Susan Wittig Albert: China Bayles Mystery Series

April 26, 2023

Thyme of Death (China Bayles 1) Today I’ll be featuring another classic Cozy, one that has been recommended many times and, in this case, one that I have read before myself, though years ago at this point, titled Thyme of Death. This is the first book in Susan Wittig Albert‘s China Bayles Mystery Series, which has grown to not only be one of the longest-running mystery series on the site, but also one of the most influential regarding modern Cozies.

Published in 1992, this is definitely the precursor to what I would consider the modern Cozy Mystery. The protagonist, China Bayles, is a former lawyer from the “big city” – in this case, Houston. Hitting a midlife crisis in her late thirties, China decided to give up her law career and follow her old passion of herbal botany, moving to the small (fictional) town of Pecan Springs midway between San Antonio and Austin. Naturally, having made this move a few years ago, she’s already close friends with many of her eccentric neighbors.

All of this might be very standard in modern Cozies, but it wasn’t anywhere near as widespread back when this was released in the early ’90s. I would go so far as to say that this is one of the cornerstones of modern Cozies in general. There are some modern elements missing – a modern Cozy usually features a zany/free-spirited older relative, and I don’t think China ever spent childhood summers in Pecan Springs that she has come to idealize during her breakneck city career – but you can definitely see the blueprint of the modern Cozy quite clearly despite these variations.

One element from many modern Cozies that I don’t miss is that this particular novel gets to the crime very quickly, while many modern mysteries tend to move much more slowly into the crime element. One of the previously mentioned eccentric neighbors is discovered dead by her daughter and China is one of the first people she calls for consolation. Naturally, it turns out that there are plenty of people who might have wanted the dead woman gone, and serious questions about whether she committed suicide.

Despite having so many familiar modern elements, it also has its old-fashioned parts, at least by modern sensibilities. First, I will warn those who prefer their Cozies perfectly “clean” that this does include significantly more profanity than I would consider normal in a modern Cozy. There are also some relatively uncomfortable “real-life” influences that might be a bit less likely to be brought up in modern Cozies. In this case, the primary victim is currently undergoing depression due to her bad prognosis for her breast cancer, which causes the initial ruling of suicide that the police reach seem more plausible. Many of these elements would be less likely to be present in a modern Cozy – none of them bother me, but I did think I should bring it up for my more sensitive readers.

I will also say that I normally link Kindles in my image links because that is how I read books these days, but that is not what I would recommend here. The Kindle isn’t a particularly good transfer, with numerous formatting issues and errors in punctuation and other minor issues that I doubt are present in the paperback. So I would recommend against the Kindle version.

All told, I would strongly recommend this novel to anyone looking for an older Cozy, though be warned that compared to more modern, more sanitized Cozies, this is going to be a bit closer to “reality” than most of the comfort-food sort of Cozies of today.

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Ellie Alexander: Sloan Krause Mysteries

March 16, 2023

Death on Tap: A Mystery (A Sloan Krause Mystery Book 1) Death on Tap by Ellie Alexander is the next book that I am featuring as part of my Most Popular and Recommended Cozy Mystery Series posts. Death on Tap introduces Sloan Krause, a craft beer expert who works at a family brewery in Leavenworth, Washington.  Within the first few pages of the story, Sloan catches her husband cheating on her with a barmaid, and she leaves him and joins a new brewery called Nitro. There she meets Garrett Strong, a handsome brewmaster who is the owner of the newest microbrewery in town.

The story takes place in Leavenworth, Washington, a small town that has a Bavarian theme and attracts tourists and beer lovers with its festivals and breweries. When I say small town, I mean really small town with maybe 2000 full-time residents. Thus, when Sloan, who had been married for around 15 years to Mac, discovers him with another woman, she is mortified that everyone will find out or, even worse, already knows about his cheating. So, she lies low for a few weeks, kicks Mac out of the house, and finds a job with another brewery since she can’t see herself continuing to work beside Mac in his family’s brewery.  

Before too long, there is a murder and Sloan feels compelled to try to solve the mystery of who committed the first such crime in town in many years.

Death on Tap is perfect for fans of Cozy Mysteries who enjoy quirky characters, witty dialogue, delicious food descriptions, and especially beer information in a very a cozy setting. The book is also great for beer enthusiasts who want to learn more about craft beer and its origins. 

I was especially impressed by the quality of the writing. The style is concise and precise. There are not too many flowery descriptions and the story (written in the first person from Sloan’s perspective), jumps from one important scene to another. I have to admit, I appreciated for once that the murder did not take place until maybe 20-30 percent into the book. Despite the apparently slow pace that this suggests, the introduction of Sloan and the town is written in a way that I found hard to put down.

Anyway, I guess I’m just trying to say that I really enjoyed Death on Tap.

As a side note, Ellie Alexander has also written the Bakeshop Mystery Series which I wrote about back in 2021 — here’s a link to that post if you are interested.

And, finally she also has written under what I believe is her real name, Kate Dyer-Seeley.

If you’re interested in seeing some of the other entries I’ve written on other highly recommended Cozy Mystery series, you can find them at the Most Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page on my site.

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