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Cozy Mystery Book Recommendations – January 2018

January is ending, so it’s time to talk about our favorite Cozy Mysteries that we read in the last month.

If you read a Cozy mystery this month and want to recommend it to the rest of us, be sure to post it here! I have two series to recommend this month. First is one of the greatest classic Cozy series of all time, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot Mystery Series. The other is one that I’d almost not call Cozy at all but rather police procedural, except is has many Cozy elements, a strong following among site readers, and is of such a high quality that I think it’s worth recommending again, Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache Mystery Series.

If you’re interested in reading why I’m recommending these series, you can go to the Most Popular & Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page on my Cozy-Mystery site for my full write-ups on each of these great Cozy series.

So, what have you been reading that you can recommend in January? Please be sure to tell us why you liked these Cozies so much. I know we’re all always on the lookout for more particularly good Cozy Mystery authors! (If you have a lot of Cozies you think are great, please post the ones you like the most at the top of the list.)

As always, please do not tell us about the Cozy Mysteries you did not like.

What really good Cozy Mystery did you read during January 2017 that you want the rest of us to know about, and why did you enjoy it?

Here are the current recommended authors who some of you have read and recommended this past month:

Cathy Ace: WISE Enquiries Agency Mystery Series

Ellery Adams (aka J. B. Stanley, Jennifer Stanley, & 1/2 of Lucy Arlington): Secret, Book & Scone Mystery Series

Conrad Allen (aka Edward Marston and Keith Miles): Dillman Mystery Series

Donna Andrews: Meg Langslow Mystery Series

Nancy Atherton: Aunt Dimity Mystery Series

Donald Bain  w/ “Jessica Fletcher”: Murder, She Wrote Mystery Series

Sandra Balzo: Maggy Thorsen Mystery Series

Emily Barnes: Katherine Sullivan Mystery Series (first entry The Fine Art of Murder)

Lorna Barrett (aka L. L. Bartlett & Lorraine Bartlett): Booktown Mystery Series

Alan Bradley: Flavia de Luce Mystery Series

Lynn Cahoon: Tourist Trap Mystery Series

Bailey Cates (aka Bailey Cattrell & Cricket McRae): Magical Bakery Mystery Series

Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot Mystery Series

Sheila Connolly (aka Sarah Atwell): County Cork Mystery Series

Ellen Crosby: Wine Country Mystery Series

Kate Dyer-Seeley (aka Ellie Alexander): Pacific Northwest Mystery Series

Janet Evanovich: Stephanie Plum Mystery Series

Christy Fifield (aka Christy Evans): Haunted Souvenir Shop Mystery Series

Victoria Gilbert: Blue Ridge Library Mystery Series (first entry A Murder for the Books)

Carolyn Haines: Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery Series

Nancy Herriman: Mystery of Old San Francisco Mystery Series

Cheryl Hollon: Webb’s Glass Shop Mystery Series

Julianne Holmes: Clock Shop Mystery Series

Miranda James (aka Dean James,  Jimmie Ruth Evans, & Honor Hartman): Cat in the Stacks Mystery Series AND Southern Ladies Mystery Series

Sofie Kelly  (aka Sofie Ryan & Darlene Ryan for Young Adult): Magical Cats Mystery Series

Libby Klein: Poppy McAllinster Mystery Series (first entry Class Reunions Are Murder)

Gayle Leeson (aka Gayle Trent & Amanda Lee): Down South Cafe Mystery Series

Catherine Lloyd: Kurland St. Mary Mystery Series

Sujata Massey: Perveen Mistry Mystery Series

Gail Oust: Spice Shop Mystery Series

Louise Penny: Chief Inspector Gamache Mystery Series

Angela Pepper: Stormy Day Mystery Series (first entry Death of a Dapper Snowman) AND Wisteria Witches Mystery Series (first entry Wisteria Wyverns)

Rose Pressey: Haunted Vintage Mystery Series

Sofie Ryan: Second Chance Cat Mystery Series

Paige Shelton: Scottish Bookshop Mystery Series AND Farmers’ Market Mystery Series AND Dangerous Type Mystery Series

Alexander McCall Smith: The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series

Karen Rose Smith: Daisy’s Tea Garden Mystery Series

Fran Stewart: Scotshop Mystery Series

Denise Swanson: Scumble River Mystery Series

Diane Vallere: Mad for Mod Mystery Series

Kate White: Bailey Weggins Mystery Series (first entry If Looks Could Kill)

[If you click on the author’s name (blue) link, it will take you to his/her page on the Cozy Mystery site. The pages have all of the authors’ books listed chronologically.]

I will list the authors and series that have been recommended, but I urge you to read the comments below so you can see the reasons other Cozy Mystery readers thought these were their best reads of the month.

♦To access more Cozy Mystery Books Recommendations, click on this link♦

P.S. I usually don’t comment on your recommendations since they speak for themselves.

New Releases – January 29 to February 4, 2018

Here is the list of new releases for January 29 to February 4!

Stephanie Blackmoore: Murder Borrowed, Murder Blue (This will be the 3rd in the Wedding Planner Mystery Series.)

Alan Bradley: The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place (This will be the 9th in the Flavia de Luce Mystery Series.)

Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell & Tace Baker): Biscuits and Slashed Browns (This will be the 4th in the Country Store Mystery Series.)

Tim Dorsey: The Pope of Palm Beach (This will be the 21st in the Serge A. Storms Mystery Series.)

Sarah Graves: Death by Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake (This will be the 1st in the NEW Death by Chocolate Mystery Series.) (This is a Fourth of July themed mystery.)

Four New-to-the-Site Cozy Authors

I’m adding four more new authors to the site. As usual, these are authors I’ve heard of from visitors to the site, either through comments or by email.

 Allison Brook is a former Spanish teacher who grew up in Brooklyn, New York, then Long Island, off the coast of New York. She has studied in Mexico and Spain to become fluent in Spanish, and has written in the genres of mysteries, romantic suspense, and young adult fiction. Her mystery series are the Haunted Library Mystery Series, and (under the name Marilyn Levinson) the Golden Age of Mystery Book Club Mystery Series and the Lydia Krause/Twin Lakes Mysteries.

 Kellye Garrett has had a career working in Hollywood, including working as a production assistant for the TV series Angela’s Eyes and writing for the CBS show Cold Case. She has also been a magazine editor, and holds a B. S. in magazine writing from Florida A&M as well as an MFA in screenwriting from the University of South California. She currently lives in her home state of New Jersey, working in New York at a media company. Her mystery series, the Detective By Day Mystery Series, stars Dayna Anderson, a struggling Hollywood actress.

 Melinda Mullet was born in Dallas, and has spent time in school in Texas, Washington D. C., England and Austria, pursuing a legal degree. She has spent many years as a practicing attorney before beginning her career as an author. She now lives near Washington, D. C. She writes the Whisky Business Mystery Series, starring a photojournalist who has inherited a whisky distillery in the Scottish Highlands.

 Ashley Weaver has worked in libraries most of her life, serving as a page and a clerk before getting a MLIS (Master of Library and Information Science). She now serves as a branch manager at Oberlin, the headquarters of the Allen Parish Libraries in Louisiana. Her mystery series, the Amory Ames Mystery Series, stars a wealthy young woman in 1930s Britain.

Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot Mysteries

A few weeks ago, I was looking at the list of Most Popular and Recommended Cozy Mystery Series and was surprised to see that I had never written about any of the series written by Agatha Christie! So, in order to correct that oversight, I picked up the first book in the Hercule Poirot series and re-read, The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

The Hercule Poirot series preceded the also very popular Miss Marple series by a full ten years. So, although I think that Miss Marple is the prototypical Cozy sleuth, I decided to start with Poirot, who is also one of my favorites. I have written about Poirot a few times before, but never specifically about the books. Among other mentions of Poirot, I wrote about David Suchet’s portrayal of Poirot, I used the first Poirot book as an example of a Cozy with a first person narrator, and I wrote about the Peter Ustinov movies where he played Poirot.

First, let me say that although the Poirot books do not meet all the characteristics that I describe in my definition of a Cozy (since Poirot is usually a paid private investigator and not an amateur sleuth), I do believe that the Poirot books are Cozy Mysteries since most of the features of Cozies are present.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles is the start of Poirot’s career in England. Poirot had been a detective with the Belgian police before the war (First World War), but in this first book, we learn that Poirot is living as a refugee from the conflict in England in the village of Styles St. Mary which is near the country house of Styles Court. Arthur Hastings, who had met Poirot in Belgium, is convalescing after being wounded in the war in the country house as the guest of John Cavendish, the step-son of Mrs Inglethorpe. Mrs. Inglethorp who had formerly been married to John’s father has recently remarried Alfred Inglethorp who is either or despised by most of people living in Styles Court. Before long, as expected in a mystery story, there is a murder and Poirot is brought in to help find the culprit.

This first book of the series has many of the hallmarks of Poirot’s finest adventures. Hastings is the narrator. Hastings fancies himself as something of a sleuth himself, but of course he is always several steps (if not miles) behind Poirot. Nevertheless, Hastings is one of my favorite Agatha Christie characters and I have to say that his absence in some of the later Poirot books makes them somewhat less enjoyable to me. Here we also meet Inspector Japp (later a Chief Inspector), who has a deep respect for Poirot. And, all of the characteristics of Poirot, including is egg-shaped head, his mustache, his insistence on “order and method” and his “little grey cells” are introduced here.

And, the plot has twists and complications that would have kept me guessing had I not read the book before and seen the story on the Suchet television series. Even knowing what was going to happen in the end did not diminish my enjoyment of the book. For such an early book by Christie (1920), her style and narrative ability are already clearly present. I really enjoyed re-reading it!

Click here to read more posts about the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery series.

P.S. Some of the available editions do not contain the original sketches of the crime scene and reproductions of some of the evidence that is collected. I think it is worth the time to find an edition that does.

Also, some reproductions of the early editions have a (very) few words are considered offensive and inappropriate (and rightly so) today.

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