The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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

June 26 to July 2, 2023

July 2, 2023

Here is the list of new releases for June 26 to July 2!

V.M. Burns: Murder is a Piece of Cake (2nd in the Baker Street Mysteries)

Vivien Chien: Misfortune Cookie (9th in the Noodle Shop Mysteries)

Miranda James (aka Dean James,  Jimmie Ruth Evans, & Honor Hartman): Hiss Me Deadly (This will be the 15th in the Cat in the Stacks Mystery Series.)

Barbara Ross: Hidden Beneath (11th in the Maine Clambake Mysteries)

Diane Vallere: Please Don’t Push Up the Daisies (11th in the Mad for Mod Mystery Series)

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Cozy Mystery Book Recommendations – June 2023

June 28, 2023

June is almost over, so it’s time to discuss our favorite Cozies that we read this 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! For this month, I read the first entry of Laura Bradford’s A Friend For Hire Mystery Series. For the reasons I want to recommend it, be sure to check out the blog entry!

So, what have you been reading that you can recommend in June? 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 June 2023 that you want the rest of us to know about, and why did you enjoy it?

Donna Andrews: Meg Langslow Mystery Series

James P Blaylock: Pennies From Heaven

Laura Bradford: A Friend For Hire Mystery Series

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

J.C. Eaton: Sophie Kimball Mystery Series

Amanda Flower (aka Isabella Alan): Amish Candy Shop Mystery Series

H.Y. Hanna: Oxford Tearoom Mystery Series (first entry A Scone To Die For)

Callie Hutton: A Victorian Book Club Mystery Series (first entry A Study in Murder)

Alyssa Maxwell: A Lady and Lady’s Maid Mystery Series

Ian Moore: Follet Valley Mystery Series (first entry Death and Croissants)

Sara Rosett: Murder on Location Mystery Series

Lee Strauss: Ginger Gold Mystery Series (first entry Murder on the SS Rosa)

Amy Vansant: Pineapple Port Mystery Series (first entry Pineapple Lies)

Ashley Weaver: Amory Ames Mystery Series AND Electra McDonnell Mystery Series

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.

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Upcoming Mysteries on Turner Classic Movies for July 2023

June 25, 2023

The Turner Classic Movies channel will be showing a few movies during July that are based on mystery authors from yester-year. There will be two S. S. Van Dine movies: The Kennel Murder Case with one of my favorite actors (William Powell) will be shown on Saturday, July 8 and The Casino Murder Case on Saturday, July 1. I’ve seen both of them several times, and will probably “tape” them on my YouTube TV device so that I can watch them again!

Also, if you’re a fan of Alfred Hitchcock’s mystery movies, there will be four of them during July: Dial M for Murder (Sunday, July 16), The Girl Was Young (Tuesday, July 18), I Confess (Tuesday, July 25), and Foreign Correspondent (Saturday, July 2).

Barbara Stanwyck (probably my all-time favorite Golden Age of Hollywood actress (except for Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and a few others!) will be featured in four mystery movies this month on the Turner Classic Movies channel: Jeopardy (Tuesday, July 11), The Mad Miss Manton and Lady of Burlesque (Tuesday, July 18), and the must-see Double Indemnity (Saturday, July 29).

And, since Eddie Muller’s Noir Alley is back, be sure to catch the noir movies he picks to show on Saturdays at midnight and then later on Sunday mornings. I enjoy his intros and outros so much that sometimes I fast-forward through the movies to see his outros and then go back and watch the movies… sort of like when the suspense in a book is so intense that I can’t wait to the end of the book and find myself peeking at the last two chapters before going back to my place in the book.

P.S. I’m a little worried about what the future will hold for the Turner Classic Movies channel. The UK version of the channel is being shut down. The current news reports about TCM look a little bleak… Hopefully Warner is able to continue the channel here.

***** ***** ***** *****

TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES CHANNEL MYSTERY MOVIES – July 2023

***** ***** ***** *****

Saturday – July 1, 2023

10:08 AM The Casino Murder Case (1935)
Society sleuth Philo Vance takes on a series of murders at an aging dowager’s mansion.
Dir: Edwin L. Marin. Cast: Paul Lukas, Alison Skipworth, Donald Cook
83 mins
*****Based on S. S. Van Dine’ mystery novels.*****

11:30 AM Soak the Old (1940)
This focuses on crimes revolving around pension scams.
Dir: Sammy Lee. Cast: John Dilson, Ralph Morgan, Edward Earle
20 mins

12:00 PM Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
The life story of dancing vaudevillian George M. Cohan.
Dir: Michael Curtiz. Cast: James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston
126 mins
*****Not a mystery but a very good Fourth of July type of movie.*****

***** ***** ***** *****

Sunday – July 2, 2023

12:00 AM Deep Valley (1947)
A farmer’s daughter helps an escaped convict.
Dir: Jean Negulesco. Cast: Ida Lupino, Dane Clark, Wayne Morris
104 mins

10:00 AM Deep Valley (1947)
A farmer’s daughter helps an escaped convict.
Dir: Jean Negulesco. Cast: Ida Lupino, Dane Clark, Wayne Morris
104 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, but a terrific movie.*****

***** ***** ***** *****

Monday – July 3, 2023

3:00 AM Barrios Altos (1987)
A divorcee investigates her masseuse’s murder.
Dir: Jose Luis Garcia Berlanga Cast: Victoria Abril, Carmen Conesa, Juanjo Puigcorbe
87 mins
*****In Spanish*****

***** ***** ***** *****

Tuesday – July 4, 2023

5:30 PM Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
The life story of dancing vaudevillian George M. Cohan.
Dir: Michael Curtiz. Cast: James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston
126 mins
*****Not a mystery but a very good Fourth of July movie.*****

***** ***** ***** *****

Wednesday – July 5, 2023

8:00 AM The Whip Hand (1951)
A small-town reporter investigates a mysterious group holed up in a country lodge.
Dir: William Cameron Menzies. Cast: Carla Balenda, Elliott Reid, Edgar Barrier
82 mins

1:15 PM The Woman on Pier 13 (1950)
Communists blackmail a shipping executive into spying for them.
Dir: Robert Stevenson. Cast: Laraine Day, Robert Ryan, John Agar
73 mins

4:30 PM Big Jim McLain (1952)
A U.S. agent takes on communists in Hawaii.
Dir: Edward Ludwig. Cast: John Wayne, Nancy Olson, James Arness
90 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Thursday – July 6, 2023

4:00 AM Intruder in the Dust (1949)
Only a young boy and an old woman stand between an innocent black man and a lynch mob.
Dir: Clarence Brown. Cast: David Brian, Claude Jarman Jr., Juano Hernandez
89 mins

5:30 AM Storm Warning (1951)
While visiting relatives in a small town, Marsha Mitchell witnesses the beating death of a man at the hands of the Klan and soon discovers that the whole town is controlled by the group…
Dir: Stuart Heisler. Cast: Ginger Rogers, Ronald Reagan, Doris Day
93 mins

6:00 PM An American Dream (1966)
A man suspected of murdering his wife has to elude the police and a gang of hoodlums.
Dir: Robert Gist. Cast: Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, Eleanor Parker
107 mins

9:30 PM Absolute Quiet (1936)
Murder follows when a plane filled with shady characters is forced to land on a tycoon’s ranch.
Dir: George B. Seitz. Cast: Lionel Atwill, Irene Hervey, Raymond Walburn
67 mins

11:00 PM Secret of the Blue Room (1933)
Several rich people staying in a mansion with a “cursed” blue room make a bet to stay in the room and not end up dead.
Dir: Kurt Neumann. Cast: Lionel Atwill, Gloria Stuart, Paul Lukas
65 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Friday – July 7, 2023

1:30 AM The Strange Mr. Gregory (1945)
A magician fakes his own death to catch a murderer.
Dir: Phil Rosen. Cast: Edmund Lowe, Jean Rogers, Don Douglas
63 mins

2:45 AM 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

***** ***** ***** *****

Saturday – July 8, 2023

12:00 AM Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Three amateur bank robbers plan to hold up a Brooklyn bank. Unfortunately, the supposedly uncomplicated heist suddenly becomes a bizarre nightmare as everything that could go wrong does.
Dir: Sidney Lumet. Cast: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Carol Kane
130 mins

10:08 AM 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
*****Based on S. S. Van Dine’ mystery novels.*****

8:00 PM The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
A dangerous madman kidnaps two businessmen on a hunting trip.
Dir: Ida Lupino. Cast: Edmond O’Brien, Frank Lovejoy, William Talman
71 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Sunday – July 9, 2023

12:00 AM Impact (1949)
After surviving a murder attempt, an auto magnate goes into hiding so his wife can pay for the crime.
Dir: Arthur Lubin. Cast: Brian Donlevy, Ella Raines, Charles Coburn
111 mins

10:00 AM Impact (1949)
After surviving a murder attempt, an auto magnate goes into hiding so his wife can pay for the crime.
Dir: Arthur Lubin. Cast: Brian Donlevy, Ella Raines, Charles Coburn
111 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Monday – July 10, 2023

2:00 AM The Castle of Sand (1974)
Two police detectives set out to solve the murder of an old man who was beaten to death.
Dir: Yoshitaro Nomura. Cast: Tetsuro Tamba, Go Kato, Kensaku Morita
143 mins
*****In Japanese*****

4:30 AM The Murderer Lives at Number 21 (1942)
An inspector moves into a Paris boarding house to catch a serial killer.
Dir: Henri-Georges Clouzot. Cast: Daniel Gelin, Pierre Fresnay, Suzy Delair
84 mins
*****In French*****

6:00 AM The Man I Love (1947)
A night-club singer gets involved with a mobster.
Dir: Raoul Walsh. Cast: Ida Lupino, Robert Alda, Andrea King
96 mins

8:00 PM Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
Desperate losers plan a bank robbery with unexpected results.
Dir: Robert Wise. Cast: Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Shelley Winters
95 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Tuesday – July 11, 2023

8:15 AM Jeopardy (1953)
A woman desperately seeks help to prevent her trapped husband from drowning.
Dir: John Sturges. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Ralph Meeker
69 mins

9:30 AM Crime Wave (1954)
A reformed parolee is caught in the middle when a wounded former cellmate seeks him out for shelter.
Dir: Andre DeToth. Cast: Sterling Hayden, Gene Nelson, Phyllis Kirk
73 mins

4:00 PM Point Blank (1967)
A professional thief seeks revenge on his unfaithful wife and a fellow mobster who double-crossed him.
Dir: John Boorman. Cast: Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn
92 mins

5:45 PM Harper (1966)
A broken-down private eye sets out to find a rich woman’s missing husband.
Dir: Jack Smight. Cast: Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris
121 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Wednesday – July 12, 2023

12:00 AM Bugsy (1991)
New York mobster “Bugsy” Siegel leaves New York City to dip into the glamour of Hollywood, CA and to build up syndicate gambling rackets.
Dir: Barry Levinson. Cast: Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Harvey Keitel
135 mins

2:30 AM Machine Gun McCain (1970)
A gangster defies the mob by going ahead with a casino job they had called off.
Dir: Giuliano Montaldo. Cast: John Cassavetes, Britt Ekland, Peter Falk
116 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Thursday – July 13

9:30 PM Dead Man’s Eyes (1944)
An artist who is blinded is promised an operation to restore his sight, but the benefactor dies a premature death and the artist becomes a suspect.
Dir: Reginald Leborg. Cast: Lon Chaney Jr., Jean Parker, Paul Kelly
64 mins

10:45 PM Murder in the Private Car (1934)
A speeding train becomes the setting for murder.
Dir: Harry Beaumont. Cast: Charles Ruggles, Una Merkel, Mary Carlisle
63 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Friday – July 14, 2023

2:30 AM Illegal (1955)
A DA falls apart when his machinations send an innocent man to the chair.
Dir: Lewis Allen. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Nina Foch, Hugh Marlowe
88 mins

7:30 AM The Leopard Man (1943)
When a leopard escapes during a publicity stunt, it triggers a series of murders.
Dir: Jacques Tourneur. Cast: Dennis O’Keefe, Margo, Jean Brooks
66 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Saturday – July 15, 2023

3:45 AM Shaft (1971)
A slick black detective enlists gangsters and African nationals to fight the mob.
Dir: Gordon Parks. Cast: Richard Roundtree, Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi
98 mins

1:45 PM The FBI Story (1959)
A dedicated FBI agent thinks back on the agency’s battles against the Klan, organized crime and Communist spies.
Dir: Mervyn Leroy. Cast: James Stewart, Vera Miles, Murray Hamilton
149 mins

6:15 PM The Lady from Shanghai (1948)
A romantic drifter gets caught between a corrupt tycoon and his voluptuous wife.
Dir: Orson Welles. Cast: Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Everett Sloane
86 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Sunday – July 16, 2023

12:00 AM Shockproof (1949)
A beautiful ex-con falls for her parole officer while still dating the crook who landed her in prison.
Dir: Douglas Sirk. Cast: Cornel Wilde, Patricia Knight, John Baragrey
80 mins

4:00 AM Dark Passage (1947)
A man falsely accused of his wife’s murder escapes to search for the real killer.
Dir: Delmer Daves. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bruce Bennett
106 mins

10:00 AM Shockproof (1949)
A beautiful ex-con falls for her parole officer while still dating the crook who landed her in prison.
Dir: Douglas Sirk. Cast: Cornel Wilde, Patricia Knight, John Baragrey
80 mins

11:45 AM Gaslight (1944)
Young Paula Alquist has given up a promising singing career to marry Gregory Anton. Deeply in love, she refuses to believe – then cannot convince anyone else – that her new husband is a thief who murdered her aunt and that everyone in her household is plotting to kill her…
Dir: George Cukor. Cast: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten
114 mins

4:00 PM Dial M for Murder (1954)
A straying husband frames his wife for the murder of the man he’d hired to kill her.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings
105 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Tuesday – July 18

6:30 AM The Mad Miss Manton (1938)
A daffy socialite gets her friends mixed up in a murder investigation.
Dir: Leigh Jason. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Sam Levene
65 mins

8:00 AM Penguin Pool Murder (1932)
A feisty school teacher sets out to solve a murder in an aquarium.
Dir: George Archainbaud. Cast: Edna May Oliver, James Gleason, Robert Armstrong
70 mins
*****Based on Stuart Palmer’s Hildegarde Withers Mystery Series.*****

9:15 AM Lured (1947)
A woman helps the police catch the serial killer who murdered her best friend.
Dir: Douglas Sirk. Cast: George Sanders, Lucille Ball, Charles Coburn
102 mins

11:00 AM Lady of Burlesque (1943)
A star dancer and comedian team to investigate murders.
Dir: William A. Wellman. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Michael O’Shea, Iris Adrian
91 mins

12:45 PM The Girl Was Young (1937)
A young girl helps an innocent man escape the law when he’s framed for murder.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Nova Pilbeam, Derrick De Marney, Percy Marmont
70 mins

2:30 PM Obsession (1949)
A jealous husband plots to dispose of his wife’s lover in an acid bath.
Dir: Edward Dmytryk. Cast: Robert Newton, Phil Brown, Naunton Wayne
96 mins

4:15 PM The Big Sleep (1946)
Called into a case involving a wealthy family, detective Philip Marlowe discovers blackmail and murder as he falls for the eldest daughter in the family.
Dir: Howard Hawks. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely
114 mins
*****Based on Raymond Chandler’s mystery novels.*****

6:15 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

***** ***** ***** *****

Wednesday – July 19, 2023

2:45 AM Mean Streets (1973)
A young hood in New York’s Little Italy contends with saving the neck of his hotheaded best friend from the local loan shark and struggles with the religious guilt prompted by his lifestyle.
Dir: Martin Scorsese. Cast: Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, David Proval
110 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Thursday – July 20, 2023

8:00 PM The Preview Murder Mystery (1936)
The star of a movie is killed and the police try to solve the murder while keeping everyone on the set.
Dir: Robert Florey. Cast: Frances Drake, Reginald Denny, Gail Patrick
60 mins

10:30 PM British Intelligence (1940)
A lady spy uses a British nobleman’s home in her undercover work for the Germans.
Dir: Terry Morse. Cast: Boris Karloff, Margaret Lindsay, Bruce Lester
62 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Friday – July 21, 2023

1:00 AM Find the Blackmailer (1943)
A private eye hunts for the talking bird that holds the key to a murder.
Dir: D. Ross Lederman. Cast: Jerome Cowan, Faye Emerson, Gene Lockhart
55 mins

7:15 AM The Secret Six (1931)
A secret society funds the investigation of a bootlegging gang.
Dir: George Hill. Cast: Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, John Mack Brown
83 mins

8:45 AM Night Spot (1938)
An undercover cop tries to catch a gang of jewel thieves at a high-society nightclub.
Dir: Christy Cabanne. Cast: Parkyakarkus, Allan Lane, Gordon Jones
60 mins

6:30 PM Stage Struck (1948)
The murder of nightclub hostess leads an investigator to seedy nightspots.
Dir: William Nigh. Cast: Kane Richmond, Audrey Long, Conrad Nagel
71 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Saturday – July 22, 2023

2:30 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

6:30 PM Crime Wave (1954)
A reformed parolee is caught in the middle when a wounded former cellmate seeks him out for shelter.
Dir: Andre Detoth. Cast: Sterling Hayden, Gene Nelson, Phyllis Kirk
73 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Sunday – July 23, 2023

12:00 AM Julie (1956)
A stewardess is stalked by her psychotic, estranged husband.
Dir: Andrew L. Stone. Cast: Doris Day, Louis Jourdan, Barry Sullivan
99 mins
*****Yes, Doris Day was in movies that weren’t musical or comedies!*****

6:00 AM 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
*****Very loosely based on Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple mystery series.*****

8:00 AM Murder Ahoy (1964)
Elderly sleuth Miss Marple takes to the seas to investigate murder on a naval training ship.
Dir: George Pollock. Cast: Margaret Rutherford, Lionel Jeffries, Charles Tingwell
93 mins
*****Very loosely based on Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple mystery series.*****

10:00 AM Julie (1956)
A stewardess is stalked by her psychotic, estranged husband.
Dir: Andrew L. Stone. Cast: Doris Day, Louis Jourdan, Barry Sullivan
99 mins
*****Yes, Doris Day was in movies that weren’t musical or comedies!*****

***** ***** ***** *****

Tuesday – July 25, 2023

6:00 AM The Invisible Menace (1938)
An Army base murder investigation dredges up strange secrets.
Dir: John Farrow. Cast: Boris Karloff, Marie Wilson, Eddie Craven
55 mins

10:45 AM A Covenant with Death (1966)
A lawyer defends a convicted man who killed his hangman before being cleared of the earlier crime.
Dir: Lamont Johnson. Cast: George Maharis, Laura Devon, Katy Jurado
97 mins

12:30 PM I Accuse! (1958)
True story of writer Emile Zola’s defense of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer framed by anti-Semites.
Dir: Jose Ferrer. Cast: Jose Ferrer, Anton Walbrook, Viveca Lindfors
99 mins

2:15 PM I Confess (1953)
Based on a 1902 play by Paul Anthelme, a Jesuit priest is wrongly accused of murder and cannot defend himself because he has vowed to protect the confession of the real criminal.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden
95 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Wednesday – July 26

6:15 PM Fury (1936)
An innocent man escapes a lynch mob then returns for revenge.
Dir: Fritz Lang Cast: Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel
94 mins

10:15 PM 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

***** ***** ***** *****

Thursday – July 27, 2023

2:15 AM The Phenix City Story (1955)
A crusading lawyer takes on the corrupt machine running a Southern town.
Dir: Phil Karlson. Cast: John McIntire, Richard Kiley, Kathryn Grant
100 mins

10:30 PM Within the Law (1939)
A wrongly convicted woman studies law and seeks her revenge.
Dir: Gustav Machaty. Cast: Ruth Hussey, Tom Neal, Paul Kelly
65 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Friday – July 28, 2023

10:15 PM Mean Streets (1973)
A young hood in New York’s Little Italy contends with saving the neck of his hotheaded best friend from the local loan shark and struggles with the religious guilt prompted by his lifestyle.
Dir: Martin Scorsese. Cast: Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, David Proval
110 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Saturday – July 29, 2023

2:00 PM Key Largo (1948)
A returning veteran tangles with a ruthless gangster during a hurricane.
Dir: John Huston. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall
101 mins

4:00 PM Foreign Correspondent (1940)
An American reporter covering the war in Europe gets mixed up in the assassination of a Dutch diplomat.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall
119 mins

8:00 PM Double Indemnity (1944)
An insurance salesman gets seduced into plotting a client’s death.
Dir: Billy Wilder. Cast: Fred Macmurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson
106 mins
*****Terrific movie!*****

10:00 PM Body Heat (1981)
A femme fatale seduces a Florida lawyer and convinces him to kill her husband.
Dir: Lawrence Kasdan. Cast: William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Richard Crenna
113 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Sunday – July 30, 2023

12:00 AM Desperate (1947)
An innocent trucker takes it on the lam when he’s accused of robbery.
Dir: Anthony Mann’ Cast: Steve Brodie, Audrey Long, Raymond Burr
73 mins

10:00 AM Desperate (1947)
An innocent trucker takes it on the lam when he’s accused of robbery.
Dir: Anthony Mann’ Cast: Steve Brodie, Audrey Long, Raymond Burr
73 mins

3:45 PM The Night of the Iguana (1964)
An ex-minister works as a tour guide in a Mexican coastal town, falls into some romantic interludes with a group of schoolteachers, and then meets a beautiful artist at a run-down hotel where the proprietress is in love with him.
Dir: John Huston. Cast: Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr
125 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

Monday – July 31, 2023

7:45 AM Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
A one-armed veteran uncovers small-town secrets when he tries to visit an Asian-American war hero’s family.
Dir: John Sturges. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis
81 mins

9:15 AM Hot Summer Night (1957)
A hot-shot reporter risks his life to land an interview with a notorious crook.
Dir: David Friedkin. Cast: Marianne Stewart, Claude Akins, Robert Wilke
86 mins

11:00 AM The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
A frustrated wife seduces a drifter into murdering her husband.
Dir: Tay Garnett. Cast: Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway
111 mins
*****Another terrific movie!*****

6:45 PM Heat Lightning (1934)
A lady gas station attendant gets mixed up with escaped murderers.
Dir: Mervyn Leroy. Cast: Aline MacMahon, Ann Dvorak, Preston Foster
63 mins

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

10:00 PM Affair in Trinidad (1952)
A nightclub singer enlists her brother-in-law to track down her husband’s killer.
Dir: Vincent Sherman. Cast: Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, Alexander Scourby
98 mins

***** ***** ***** *****

If you’re really looking forward to these or other mystery-themed TV specials coming up in July, 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 June2023 television mystery movies schedule:

Upcoming Television Mystery Movies for Juny 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.

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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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