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

Laurie Cass: Bookmobile Cat Mystery Series

December 28, 2022

Lending a Paw: A Bookmobile Cat Mystery (Bookmobile Cat Mysteries Book 1) As part of my ongoing series highlighting the most recommended and popular Cozy Mystery series suggested by site readers, this month I will be discussing the first entry in Laurie Cass (aka Laura Alden)‘s first entry in her Bookmobile Cat Mystery Series, titled Lending a Paw.

Librarian Minnie Hamilton has spent the last three years in the small resort town of Chilson, Michigan, having taken up an assistant director position at the district library, having spent many happy summers there as a small child, staying with her aunt Frances, who still maintains guest rooms for the resort season. More recently, Minnie had acquired a new family member as well – Eddie, a stray cat black and white striped cat that had followed Minnie home from relaxing in a local cemetery.

Though she has been working in Chilson for some time, Minnie is starting another chapter in her career – she had the idea for a bookmobile attached to the local library, driving about town to visit readers and distribute books, and as her idea, when it was decided to go along with the idea, she was the person who would end up driving it.

Naturally, it was a bit of a surprise to her that there would be a co-pilot for the drive – her cat Eddie – and even more of a surprise that at one of her first stops, Eddie would turn up a dead body instead of a book enthusiast looking for some light reading.

The deceased that Eddie and Minnie turned up, Stan Larabee, was a bit of a surprising figure – most of the town considered him a tight man with his money, someone who was more concerned with business than anything else, but he had also been the main donor to setting up the bookmobile, more or less single-handedly bankrolling the project. So despite the fact that most of the small town wasn’t terribly concerned at his sudden death, Minnie felt a certain responsibility – not only as the person who discovered him, but also one of the few that seemed to see him in a better light, no doubt one of the reasons that she began investigating on her own – or rather, with Eddie.

Set in a small midwestern sort of town, revolving around two comfortably Cozy topics, in this case cats and books, with a protagonist returning to a familiar family haunt after years away, Lending a Paw is a good example of a fairly conventional modern Cozy – and like most modern Cozies, it’s definitely a story that many modern Cozy fans will be able to sit down and spend some time with. This isn’t an innovation in mysteries by any means, but the interactions of the characters and especially of Eddie make it quite worthwhile to any fans of a combination of mysteries, cats, and bookmobiles.

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Jane K. Cleland: Josie Prescott Antiques Mystery Series

November 13, 2022

Consigned to Death (Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries Book 1) Way back in 2006, Jane K. Cleland’s Consigned to Death, the first book in her Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries series, was published. (Coincidentally, 2006 was the year in which I started my Cozy Mystery site. It is weird to think how long ago that was.) Anyway, Consigned to Death is the next in my series of posts about the most popular and recommended Cozy mystery books. 

I just finished re-reading this book earlier this month, and wow, I have to say that if you have any interest at all in reading an excellent mystery that contains a lot of information about antiques, this is the series for you. 

Josie Prescott is the owner of a very busy antique shop in the small seacoast town of Rocky Point, New Hampshire. Josie had moved there only a couple of years before the story begins. Her move from the big city did not happen because of a boyfriend/husband break up, but rather because she had been a whistle-blower about illegal activity happening at the large antique auction house she previously worked for in New York City. She moved to a small town and opened her own auction store/auction warehouse. Somewhat refreshingly, by doing so she stayed in the same field of expertise that she had been in when working in New York.

Unfortunately for Josie, as the book opens the town’s police chief shows up to ask her questions about a potential client that Josie met that same day who had been found murdered. And, even more, unfortunately, as the police’s investigation moved forward, more and more evidence seemed to point to Josie as being the murderer.

On the other hand, fortunately for Josie, she had earlier met a very good lawyer in town who she hired to help her through the legal maze in which she found herself. Even more fortunately for Josie, the chief of police turned out to be a very smart and thorough man (who just happened to be quite handsome). Needless to say, Josie and the police found that there were a lot of threads to pull before this mystery could be unraveled.

Consigned to Death is a very good mystery read with a highly sympathetic main character and a very well-rounded supporting cast. I highly recommend it. There is no doubt that Jane K. Cleland is a very accomplished writer. Just a quick glance at her website’s “about page” and you will see the numerous awards her books have won or been chosen as finalists. And, not only has she written best-selling cozy mystery books, but she has also authored several books and articles about the craft of writing.

As an aside, I have to add that her website is one of the best author websites I have seen in recent years. In my opinion, far too many authors rely on a really difficult-to-navigate Facebook page or have no online presence at all. I really wish that more authors would take a look at this site and try to emulate its depth and quality of information.

If you’re interested in seeing other most recommended or popular Cozy Mystery authors/series, please visit the Most Popular & Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page on my site.

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Libby Klein: Poppy McAllister Mystery Series

October 26, 2022

Class Reunions Are Murder (A Poppy McAllister Mystery Book 1) As part of my ongoing series highlighting the most recommended and popular Cozy Mystery series suggested by site readers, this month I will be discussing the first entry in Libby Klein‘s first entry in her Poppy McAllister Mystery Series, titled Class Reunions are Murder.

This book is another relatively recent Cozy, released in 2018, though the series already has seven entries – some authors really have a talent for writing quickly! Though it’s also possible she had a few written before getting them published. As such, it definitely has a lot of the hallmarks of a modern Cozy – specifically, a down-on-her-luck sleuth who is ready to move on to a new career, new town, etc.

In this case, Poppy isn’t actually looking to move back home at the beginning – she’s a recent widow in her early 40s who is still going through the grieving process for her husband, and only intends to go back to her childhood home of Cape May, New Jersey, to attend her high school class reunion. She doesn’t really even want to go to that, but is pressured by her old high school friends. All of them were former nerds/outcasts in their high school experience, and have received personal invitations to the reunion from their mutual bully, Barbie, who wanted to meet with them privately at some point during the reunion.

When Poppy and friends do run into Barbie at the reunion, she’s combative and insulting not only to them, but to the majority of her other former classmates. Naturally, as in many Cozies, the meanest person introduced is given cosmic karma for their attitude by being killed after antagonizing a large group of people who already have no reason to love her. Poppy is the person who locates her body – and naturally becomes the primary suspect.

A bit of a warning – a few of the reasons Poppy’s life is a mess at the beginning of the novel are a bit darker than in most Cozies (even for the “grieving widow” subset of Cozy sleuths), so if you’re looking for a more pure “good-times” sort of Cozy, this might not be at the top of your list. Indeed, the fact that Poppy’s life legitimately seems depressing at the beginning of the novel is one of the big differences between this and other Cozies. Most Cozy protagonists have already gotten over the worst of their emotional issues before becoming determined to make a fresh start, but Poppy feels like a much more realistic depiction of someone who really legitimately needs to make a big change to start to get their life back on track.

Naturally, this being a Cozy, a lot of those problems start to unravel as Poppy is exposed to her old hometown, though they become replaced by new problems – most obviously the murder accusation, but also other complications like her bail being covered by her old high school boyfriend, her eccentric Great-Aunt Ginny needing more supervision now that she’s in her eighties, and other similar Cozy-ish sort of developments. The final takeaway is that Poppy does indeed start at a relatively low place – but in this case, it’s a good thing, because it gives the character a real ability to grow through the course of the novel. This is definitely a transition that’s worth seeing, and one that is surprisingly rare in protagonists of the Cozy genre. 

If you’re interested in seeing other most recommended or popular Cozy Mystery authors/series, please visit the Most Popular & Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page on my site.

PS: If this tips the scales for any recipe fanatics out there, this novel does include seven recipes at the end.

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Darci Hannah: Beacon Bakeshop Mysteries

September 15, 2022

Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop (A Beacon Bakeshop Mystery Book 1) I am the first to admit that Cozy Mysteries are deeply rooted in fantasy. Even Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple was living a life just a bit too good to be true. With her perfect little cottage and flower garden, her perfect little village of St Mary Mead where she knew everyone and nearly everyone was her friend and confidante. And where her nephew, Raymond, supplied the cash she needed to go on her Caribbean adventure, Miss Marple lived in stories that were just far enough from reality to be really fun to read.

However, Lindsey Bakewell’s life (yes her friends give her a hard time about her name given her talent for baking), far exceeds anything in Agatha Christie’s characters or for that matter most characters in most books in the fantasy department. Lindsey is the daughter of a fashion model mom and a Wall Street hedge fund manager. Luckily for Lindsey, she inherited the best characteristics from both of her parents. Lindsey says of herself:

Thank goodness I’d gotten my light green eyes, high cheekbones, and ash-blond hair from Mom and Dad’s affinity for numbers.

Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop is the first in the Beacon Bakeshop Mystery series by Darci Hannah, and this is the next in my continuing effort to write about the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery series. 

Anyway and needless to say, Lindsey is a 30-something beauty who is wealthy and smart. At the beginning of the story, we learn that she just recently quit her Wall Street investment banking job where she had earned a boatload of money and had bought a run-down lighthouse on the coast of Lake Michigan which she proceeds to turn into a bakeshop and cafe. Baking is Lindsey’s true passion and she is very, very good at it. Lindsey’s baking skill, plus having her best friend who is a social media influencer with over 10 million followers, virtually guarantees that the bakeshop will be an instant hit.

She is also quite good at attracting handsome men. Having just dumped her fiancé (a celebrity chef in New York City) who she had caught cheating on her, Lindsey finds that her lighthouse, although no longer a working beacon for ships on the lake, is now a beacon for handsome and fit men. Nearly the first person she meets is her neighbor, Rory, a former Navy Seal who is her closest neighbor and who is working on writing a book. 

Soon enough, a murder happens and Lindsey gets involved in the sleuthing. She is naturally involved because the murder was a poisoning that happened at the bakeshop on its opening day. 

Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop is a fun read. If you are looking for a Cozy that will put you in a truly enchanting setting (there is even a ghost involved),  and want to follow a character who has lived what for most people would be considered a truly charmed life. this book should be one of your first choices.

I almost forgot to mention the delicious-looking recipes included at the end of the book!

If you’re interested in seeing other most recommended or popular Cozy Mystery authors/series, please visit the Most Popular & Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page on my Cozy Mystery site.

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