I hope that all of you who celebrate it have a wonderful Christmas, and everyone has a very happy end of the year!Nancy Coco: Oregon Honeycomb Mystery Series
It’s once again time to discuss one of the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery series as suggested by site readers, and this time I’ll be talking about the first in Nancy Coco‘s Oregon Honeycomb Mystery Series, Death Bee Comes Her.
Wren Johnson is the owner of Let It Bee, a specialty boutique focusing on all things honey in Oceanview, a small seaside tourist town in Oregon. One of her main sources of exercise is walking her Havana Brown cat, Everett, a very social cat that appears to tolerate a leash much more than any other cat I have ever personally encountered!
It’s on one of these walks down to the beach that Wren and Everett stumble across the body of a local curmudgeonly crafter and a rival of Wren’s Aunt Eloise, Agnes Snow – and she’s clutching a label of Wren’s lip balm, both of which make Wren seem like something of a suspect. Of course, as the mystery proceeds, it quickly becomes obvious that there were quite a few people who might have had various reasons to with harm on Agnes Snow.
Naturally, the cast includes a number of eccentric and interesting locals, such as Aunt Eloise, various owners of shops close to the Let It Bee, and the local police representative, hunky Officer Jim Hampton.
I definitely will say that I appreciate how quickly the corpse is stumbled upon. I like setting the scene of a mystery as much as the next Cozy fan, but finding the body in the first chapter goes a long way toward establishing that this is a mystery with Cozy elements, and not a discussion on a specific Cozy hobby with a bit of a mystery stuck in at the back.
All in all, I quite enjoyed my time reading Death Bee Comes Her. The biggest problem is that this particular series unfortunately doesn’t have much more to it – there is a second entry, but that was released in early 2022 and there hasn’t been any mention of another coming out that I have heard of. Still, perhaps we’ll be lucky and see more mysteries starring Wren and highlighting the Oregon coast.
This might be the first time I’ve written about this particular mystery series, but it isn’t the first time I’ve highlighted Nancy Coco – I have already done another entry on this series for her main mystery series, the Candy-Coated Mystery Series. She also writes a number of other series under two other names – the Kensington Chef Mystery Series under the name Nell Hampton, and the Wine Country Mystery Series, Baker’s Treat Mystery Series, and the Perfect Proposals Mystery Series under the name Nancy J. Parra.
For those who are interested in that sort of thing, this does also include some wax and honey related recipes and tips, though unlike most similar recipes, these are scattered at the end of specific chapters, not collected at the end.
Upcoming Mysteries on Turner Classic Movies for January 2024
Wow, another New Year is almost upon us! I hope 2024 is a GREAT year for ALL of us!
Something that sort of surprised me while I was getting the Turner Classic Movies mystery movies schedule together: The year is starting (on January 1) with Godzilla movies which are then going to be followed with the Marx brother movies, not the Thin Man mystery movies. For years, William Powell and Myrna Loy have been ushering us into the New Year with their “many-martinis” mystery movies.
Perhaps the Turner Classic Movies decided it was time to let another mystery movie hero welcome us into 2024… Several of The Saint mystery movies (based on Leslie Charteris’s mystery series) will be aired on Friday, January 12. I don’t believe I have seen all of the line-up, so I’ll be DVR-ing some of them. Three actors will be portraying Simon Templar (“The Saint”) so it will be interesting to see which one is the best…
***** ***** ***** *****
TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES CHANNEL MYSTERY MOVIES – December 2023
***** ***** ***** *****
Tuesday – January 2, 2024
2:45 PM Murder Most Foul (1964)
Elderly sleuth Miss Marple joins a small-town theatre to investigate a murder.
Dir: George Pollock. Cast: Margaret Rutherford, Ron Moody, Charles Tingwell
90 mins
8:00 PM Out of the Past (1947)
A private eye tries to escape his past by running a gas station in a small town, but it catches up to him.
Dir: Jacques Tourneur. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas
97 mins
9:45 PM The Big Steal (1949)
A man is on the trail of a thief who stole a $300,000 Army payroll, but there is someone else after him – a woman.
Dir: Don Siegel. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, William Bendix
71 mins
11:15 PM His Kind of Woman (1951)
A deported gangster causes problems for guests at a Mexican resort.
Dir: John Farrow. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Vincent Price
122 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Wednesday – January 3, 2024
1:30 AM Angel Face (1953)
A woman murders her family for their money.
Dir: Otto Preminger. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, Mona Freeman
91 mins
3:15 AM Where Danger Lives (1950)
A psychopath draws her doctor into her murderous schemes.
Dir: John Farrow. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Faith Domergue, Claude Rains
84 mins
4:45 AM The Racket (1951)
A tough cop has to fight his superiors in order to battle the mob.
Dir: John Cromwell. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Lizabeth Scott, Robert Ryan
88 mins
6:30 AM Crossfire (1947)
A crusading district attorney investigates the murder of a Jewish man.
Dir: Edward Dmytryk. Cast: Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan
85 mins
8:15 AM Macao (1952)
A man on the run in the Far East is mistaken for an undercover cop.
Dir: Josef Von Sternberg. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, William Bendix
80 mins
9:45 AM Second Chance (1953)
A crooked boxer falls for a gangster’s moll on the run in Mexico.
Dir: Rudy Maté. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Linda Darnell, Jack Palance
82 mins
11:15 AM The Locket (1946)
A dark personal secret drives a young woman to use every man she encounters.
Dir: John Brahm. Cast: Laraine Day, Brian Aherne, Robert Mitchum
86 mins
1:00 PM Undercurrent (1946)
A sheltered woman realizes that either her husband or his mysterious brother is a psychopath.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli. Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, Robert Mitchum
116 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Friday – January 5, 2024
2:15 PM Suspense (1946)
The new manager of an ice show plots to steal the owners business and his wife.
Dir: Frank Tuttle. Cast: Belita, Barry Sullivan, Bonita Granville
100 mins
4:15 PM The Hunted (1948)
A police detective investigating a jewel robbery discovers evidence that points to his girlfriend as the culprit, although she claims she was framed.
Dir: Jack Bernhard Cast: Preston Foster, Belita, Pierre Watkin
67 mins
8:00 PM Moonstruck (1987)
A levelheaded young woman falls in love with her fiance’s brother in a Brooklyn Italian-American neighborhood.
Dir: Norman Jewison. Cast: Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia
102 mins
*****Not a mystery, but very good.*****
***** ***** ***** *****
Saturday – January 6, 2024
11:30 AM Dark Shadows (1944)
A psychiatrist investigates the murder of another psychiatrist.
Dir: Walter Hart. Cast: William Tannen, Dorothy Adams, Paul Langton
21 mins
3:30 PM Cast a Dark Shadow (1955)
A wife-killer marries an innocent barmaid and plots her death.
Dir: Lewis Gilbert. Cast: Margaret Lockwood, Dirk Bogarde, Kay Walsh
85 mins
5:00 PM Detour (1945)
A hitchhiker takes on a dead man’s identity only to face blackmail by an unscrupulous woman.
Dir: Edgar G. Ulmer. Cast: Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake
68 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Sunday – January 7, 2024
12:30 AM Pickup (1951)
An older man falls for a much younger beauty who is after his money.
Dir: Hugo Haas. Cast: Hugo Haas, Beverly Michaels, Allan Nixon
78 mins
2:15 AM This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
A filmmaker documents the history of Spinal Tap, the world’s loudest rock band.
Dir: Rob Reiner. Cast: Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, Michael Mckean
82 mins
***Not a mystery. A terrific mockumentary!*****
10:00 AM Pickup (1951)
An older man falls for a much younger beauty who is after his money.
Dir: Hugo Haas. Cast: Hugo Haas, Beverly Michaels, Allan Nixon
78 mins
3:45 PM The Gazebo (1960)
A suburban couple tries to cope with a murder victim whose body refuses to stay put.
Dir: George Marshall. Cast: Glenn Ford, Debbie Reynolds, Carl Reiner
100 mins
5:45 PM Deathtrap (1982)
Sidney Bruhl is a formerly successful writer of Broadway thrillers who is trying to recover from the failure of his latest play. When Sidney returns to his wife Myra, a rich woman with a heart problem who is prone to hysterics, he tells her of his jealousy and humiliation upon the receipt of the first play of a former student. …
Dir: Sidney Lumet. Cast: Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon
115 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Monday – January 8, 2024
2:00 AM The Vanishing (1988)
A young man is obsessed with finding the girlfriend who vanished at a rest stop.
Dir: George Sluizer. Cast: Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Johanna Ter Steege
107 mins
*****In Dutch*****
4:00 AM Insomnia (1997)
A psychological crime thriller which follows a sleep-deprived homicide detective as he investigates the brutal murder of a teenage girl in Northern Norway. A second murder intensifies the pursuit and prompts the policeman to take some of the same risks as the man they are hunting.
Dir: Erik Skjoldbjµrg. Cast: Stellan Skarsgård, Sverre Anker Ousdal, Bjørn Floberg
99 mins
*****In Swedish and Norwegian*****
***** ***** ***** *****
Wednesday – January 10, 2024
8:00 PM Gilda (1946)
A gambler discovers an old flame in South America, but she’s married to his new boss.
Dir: Charles Vidor. Cast: Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready
110 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Thursday -January 11, 2024
2:00 PM The Liquidator (1966)
A killer-for-hire gets mixed up with a plot to assassinate England’s Prince Phillip.
Dir: Jack Cardiff. Cast: Rod Taylor, Trevor Howard, Jill St. John
104 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Friday – January 12, 2024
6:15 AM The Saint in New York (1938)
The Saint goes undercover to get the goods on New York’s mob kingpins.
Dir: Ben Holmes. Cast: Louis Hayward, Kay Sutton, Sig Rumann
72 mins
7:45 AM The Saint Strikes Back (1939)
The Saint helps a young beauty take vengeance on the mobsters who ruined her father.
Dir: John Farrow. Cast: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Jerome Cowan
64 mins
9:00 AM The Saint in London (1939)
The Saint’s investigation of a counterfeiting ring uncovers a nest of spies.
Dir: John Paddy Carstairs. Cast: George Sanders, Sally Gray, David Burns
72 mins
10:30 AM The Saint’s Double Trouble (1940)
Reformed jewel thief Simon Templer lands in hot water when a look-alike smuggles stolen goods out of Egypt.
Dir: Jack Hively. Cast: George Sanders, Helene Whitney, Jonathan Hale
68 mins
11:45 AM The Saint Takes Over (1940)
Reformed jewel thief Simon Templar tries to help a police inspector who’s been framed on bribery charges.
Dir: Jack Hively. Cast: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Jonathan Hale
69 mins
1:00 PM The Saint in Palm Springs (1941)
Reformed jewel thief Simon Templar’s efforts to deliver a fortune in rare stamps are complicated by murder.
Dir: Jack Hively. Cast: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Paul Guilfoyle
66 mins
2:15 PM The Saint’s Vacation (1941)
Reformed jewel thief Simon Templer vies with Nazi agents for possession of a mysterious music box.
Dir: Leslie Fenton. Cast: Hugh Sinclair, Sally Gray, Arthur Macrae
60 mins
3:30 PM The Saint Meets the Tiger (1943)
The Saint infiltrates a small English village run by smugglers.
Dir: Paul Stein. Cast: Hugh Sinclair, Jean Gillie, Gordon McLeod
70 mins
8:00 PM Bullitt (1968)
A detective is sent by a politician to catch a big-time gangster so he can procure him before a Senate crime committee for selfish gain. When the gangster is killed before this can happen, the detective and the politico clash with each other.
Dir: Peter Yates. Cast: Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bisset
114 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Saturday – January 13, 2024
2:00 AM Eyes in the Night (1942)
Blind detective Duncan Maclain gets mixed up with enemy agents and murder when he tries to help an old friend with a rebellious stepdaughter.
Dir: Fred Zinnemann. Cast: Edward Arnold, Ann Harding, Donna Reed
80 mins
8:00 PM Mississippi Burning (1988)
FBI agents investigate the murders of civil rights workers in the South.
Dir: Alan Parker. Cast: Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe, Frances Mcdormand
125 mins
10:15 PM The Boston Strangler (1968)
The true story of the extensive police manhunt for a serial killer in Boston who had strangled a number of young women in the early 60s.
Dir: Richard Fleischer. Cast: Tony Curtis, Henry Fonda, George Kennedy
116 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Sunday – January 14, 2024
12:15 AM I Died a Thousand Times (1955)
An ex-con dreaming of one last heist faces dissension within his gang.
Dir: Stuart Heisler. Cast: Jack Palance, Shelley Winters, Lori Nelson
109 mins
6:00 AM Dead Ringer (1964)
One of a pair of twins, jealous that the other became wealthy and took away her husband, kills her sister and takes over the latter’s identity.
Dir: Paul Henreid. Cast: Bette Davis, Karl Malden, Peter Lawford
115 mins
8:00 AM A Stolen Life (1946)
A twin takes her deceased sister’s place as the wife of the man they both love.
Dir: Curtis Bernhardt. Cast: Bette Davis, Glenn Ford, Dane Clark
107 mins
10:00 AM I Died a Thousand Times (1955)
An ex-con dreaming of one last heist faces dissension within his gang.
Dir: Stuart Heisler. Cast: Jack Palance, Shelley Winters, Lori Nelson
109 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Monday – January 15, 2024
10:00 AM In the Heat of the Night (1967)
A black detective teams up with a racist white sheriff to solve a murder in a small town in the South. Over time, they begin to find respect for one another.
Dir: Norman Jewison. Cast: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates
109 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Wednesday – January 17, 2024
8:45 AM The Angry Hills (1959)
A World War II correspondent fights to get strategic information out of occupied Greece.
Dir: Robert Aldrich. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Stanley Baker, Elisabeth Mueller
105 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Friday – January 19, 2024
8:00 PM Best in Show (2000)
A “behind the scenes” look into the highly competitive and cut-throat world of dog-shows through the eyes of a group of ruthless dog owners – all hoping to take the “Best in Show” prize.
Dir: Christopher Guest. Cast: Jennifer Coolidge, Christopher Guest, John Michael Higgins, Michael Hitchcock, Eugene Levy, Jane Lynch, Michael McKean, Catherine O’Hara, Parker Posey, Fred Willard (What a cast!)
90 mins
*****Not a mystery, but a very funny movie.*****
9:45 PM The Kennel Murder Case (1933)
Society sleuth Philo Vance investigates a murder tied to a Long Island dog show.
Dir: Michael Curtiz. Cast: William Powell, Mary Astor, Eugene Pallette
73 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Saturday – January 20, 2024
10:09 AM After Office Hours (1935)
A society newspaperwoman tries to prove to her editor that she can crack a murder case.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard. Cast: Constance Bennett, Clark Gable, Stuart Erwin
75 mins
6:00 PM The Late Show (1977)
An aging private eye hooks up with a Hollywood eccentric to investigate his partner’s murder.
Dir: Robert Benton. Cast: Art Carney, Lily Tomlin, Bill Macy
94 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Sunday – January 21, 2024
12:15 AM Stage Fright (1950)
When witnesses see a man fleeing the scene of a murder he asks his former girlfriend for help. Believing him innocent, she uses her skills at stagecraft to prove the real murderer is chanteuse Charlotte Inwood.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, Michael Wilding
110 mins
10:00 AM Stage Fright (1950)
When witnesses see a man fleeing the scene of a murderhe asks his former girlfriend for help. Believing him innocent, she uses her skills at stagecraft to prove the real murderer is chanteuse Charlotte Inwood.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, Michael Wilding
110 mins
12:15 PM Idiot’s Delight (1939)
2:15 PM I Know Where I’m Going (1945)
A determined young Englishwoman sets out to accomplish her goals even at the risk of her heart.
Dir: Michael Powell Cast: Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey, George Carney
92 mins
*****Not a mystery, though an excellent movie.*****
10:00 PM The Heiress (1949)
A plain young woman’s wealth makes her prey to fortune hunters.
Dir: William Wyler Cast: Olivia De Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson
115 mins
*****Not a mystery, but this is another really good movie.*****
***** ***** ***** *****
Tuesday – January 23, 2024
12:30 AM Klute (1971)
A low-key small town detective journeys to New York City to investigate the murder of a friend and discovers that both the killer and the victim were clients of the same high-class call girl.
Dir: Alan J. Pakula. Cast: Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi
114 mins
1:00 PM Murder on a Honeymoon (1935)
A schoolteacher jumps into detective mode when a fellow airplane passenger gets sick and dies.
Dir: Lloyd Corrigan. Cast: Edna May Oliver, James Gleason, Lola Lane
74 mins
*****Based on Stuart Palmer’s Miss Withers mystery series.*****
8:00 PM The Night of the Hunter (1955)
After hearing an about-to-be-hanged murderer’s story about some hidden money he left in the care of his two young kids, the murderer’s cell-mate is released and embarks on a journey to find the killer’s family.
Dir: Charles Laughton. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish
93 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Wednesday – January 24, 2024
6:15 AM My Forbidden Past (1951)
A beauty with a skeleton in her closet seeks revenge on the suitor who jilted her.
Dir: Robert Stevenson. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Ava Gardner, Melvyn Douglas
81 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Friday – January 26, 2024
12:15 AM Psycho (1960)
A woman on the run gets mixed up with a repressed young man and his violent mother.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin
109 mins
6:00 PM Repeat Performance (1947)
On New Year’s Eve 1946, Sheila Page kills her husband Barney. She wishes that she could relive 1946 and avoid the mistakes that she made throughout the year. Her wish comes true but cheating fate proves more difficult than she anticipated.
Dir: Alfred Werker. Cast: Louis Hayward, Joan Leslie, Virginia Field
93 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Sunday – January 28, 2024
12:00 AM Woman In Hiding (1950)
After her father is killed in an accident, mill heiress Deborah Chandler marries the plant manager, Selden Clark, but his motives are suspicious.
Dir: Michael Gordon. Cast: Ida Lupino, Stephen McNally, Howard Duff
92 mins
10:00 AM Woman In Hiding (1950)
After her father is killed in an accident, mill heiress Deborah Chandler marries the plant manager, Selden Clark, but his motives are suspicious.
Dir: Michael Gordon. Cast: Ida Lupino, Stephen McNally, Howard Duff
92 mins
6:00 PM Jezebel (1938)
Julie Marsden has a place in New Orleans society and a man who adores her, Preston Dillard. But she scandalizes society and her beau when she insists on wearing a stunning red gown to a ball that requires ladies to be dressed in white. Marsden’s headstrong action begins a chain of events that will reveal both her raw viciousness …
Dir: William Wyler. Cast: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, George Brent
104 mins
*****Not a mystery. Excellent movie.*****
***** ***** ***** *****
Monday – January 29, 2024
6:15 PM The Light Touch (1951)
An art thief tries to double cross his gangster boss.
Dir: Richard Brooks. Cast: Stewart Granger, Pier Angeli, George Sanders
93 mins
10:15 PM Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
In the early 1930s, a car thief and the daughter of his intended victim team up to become America’s most feared and ruthless bank robbers.
Dir: Arthur Penn. Cast: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard
111 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Tuesday – January 30 2024
10:00 PM Cape Fear (1962)
A released convict decides to menace and wreak havoc on the family of his defense lawyer.
Dir: J. Lee Thompson. Cast: Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen
105 mins
2:00 AM Farewell, My Lovely (1975)
Los Angeles private detective Philip Marlowe takes on the job of finding ex-con Moose Malloy’s girlfriend Velma. Once on the case, Marlowe finds himself in one dangerous situation after another as he follows a trail of lies and betrayals.
Dir: Dick Richards. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland
97 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
Wednesday – January 31, 2024
7:15 AM The Yakuza (1974)
Harry Kilmer is an ex-soldier who returns to Japan to help his friend George Tanner whose daughter has been kidnapped by the Japanese mafia known as the Yakuza.
Dir: Sydney Pollack. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Ken Takakura, Brian Keith
112 mins
***** ***** ***** *****
If you’re really looking forward to these or other mystery-themed TV specials coming up in January, be sure to leave a comment below!
In case you’re interested in seeing the rest of this month’s television mystery movies, here’s the December 2023 television mystery movies schedule:
Upcoming Television Mystery Movies for December 2023 on Turner Classic Movies channel
And here is the page on my site with plenty of entries about movies and television shows you may enjoy:
Cozy Mystery List TV and Movie Section – all you have to do is click on the link to go to that page on my site.
One New Mystery Series Coming January 2024
We will have one new Cozy Mystery Series by an established site author beginning in January 2024!
Joyce Tremel will be releasing the first entry in her Cider House Mystery Series, titled Deadly to the Core. 35-year-old Kate Mulligan is at a low point in her life, having recently lost her husband in a car crash, when she faces a more distant bereavement, the death of her great uncle Stan, who has left her a fruit orchard in a small town near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. She decides to make this a new start, opening a cider house on the property. Unfortunately, tragedy strikes her once again when she finds the body of the orchard manager. Tremel is also the author of the Brewing Trouble Mystery Series, starring a certified brewmaster in Pennsylvania, and (as Joyce St. Anthony) the Homefront News Mystery Series, starring the editor of a WWII-era newspaper.
