The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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

August 2011 Mystery Book New Releases

The following Mystery Books will be released in August 2011:

Jo Bannister: Death in High Places (This will be a Stand Alone…)

Stephanie Barron (aka Francine Mathews): Jane and the Canterbury Tales (This will be the 11th in the Jane Austen Mystery Series…)

Jessica Beck: Tragic Toppings (This will be the 5th in the Donut Shop Mystery Series…)

Jacklyn Brady (aka Sherry Lewis): A Sheetcake Named Desire (This will be the 1st in the NEW Piece of Cake Mystery Series…)

Judy Clemens: Flowers for Her Grave (This will be the 3rd in the Grim Reaper Mystery Series…)

Susan Conant: Brute Strength (This will be the 19th in the Dog Lover’s Mystery Series…)

Sheila Connolly (aka Sarah Atwell): Bitter Harvest (This will be the in the 5th in the Orchard Mystery Series…)

Cleo Coyle (aka Alice Kimberly): Murder by Mocha (This will be the 10th in the Coffeehouse Mystery Series…)

Ellen Crosby: The Sauvignon Secret (This will be the 6th in the Wine Country Mystery Series…)

Mary Daheim: All the Pretty Hearses (This will be the 26th in the Hillside Manor Bed & Breakfast Mystery Series…)

Carole Nelson Douglas: Cat in a Vegas Gold Vendetta (This will be the 23rd in the Midnight Louie Mystery Series…)

Anthony Eglin: Garden of Secrets Past (This will be the 5th in the English Garden Mystery Series…)

Jane Haddam: Flowering Judas (This will be the 26th in the Gregor Demarkian Mystery Series…)

Charlaine Harris: Home Improvement: Undead Edition (Editor of anthology with Toni L. P. Kelner)

Charlaine Harris: The Sookie Stackhouse Companion (This will be a companion to the Sookie Stackhouse Mystery Series…)

Roderic Jeffries (aka Peter Alding & Jeffrey Ashford): Murder Majorcan Style (This will be the 35th in the Inspector Alvarez Mystery Series…)

Toni L. P. Kelner: Home Improvement: Undead Edition (Editor of anthology with Charlaine Harrris)

Tracy Kiely: Murder Most Persuasive (This will be the 3rd in the Elizabeth Parker Mystery Series…)

William Kent Krueger: Northwest Angle  (This will be the 11th in the Cork O’Connor Mystery Series…)

Joyce & Jim Lavene: Harrowing Hats (This will be the 4th in the Renaissance Faire Mystery Series…)

Laura Lippman: The Most Dangerous Thing (This will be a Stand Alone…)

Casey Mayes (aka Tim Myers, Chris Cavender, Elizabeth Bright, & Melissa Glazer): A Killer Column (This will be the 2nd in the Math Puzzle Mystery Series…)

Judi McCoy: Till Death Do Us Bark (This will be the 5th in the Dog Walker Mystery Series…)

James Patterson & Marshall Karp: Kill Me If You Can (This will be a Stand Alone…)

Louise Penny: A Trick of the Light (This will be the 7th in the Chief Inspector Gamache Mystery Series…)

Anne Perry: Acceptable Loss (This will be the 17th in the William Monk Mystery Series…)

Kathy Reichs: Flash and Bones (This will be the 14th in the Temperance Brennan Mystery Series…)

Sarah R. Shaber: Louise’s War (This will be the 1st in the NEW Louise Pearlie Mystery Series…)

Marcia Talley: A Quiet Death (This will be the 10th in the Hannah Ives Mystery Series…)

Charles Todd: A Bitter Truth (This will be the 3rd in the Bess Crawford Mystery Series…)

♦To go back to the Cozy Mystery New Book Release page, click here.♦

New Tricks – British Television Mystery Series

If you want to watch a tongue-in-cheek police procedural television show that makes light of aging “coppers” while also showing that people with age and experience make the best workers >>> then the British television series called New Tricks is probably exactly what you are looking for. (I happen to be a big fan of this British, humorous police procedural dramedy.)

New Tricks features one middle-age detective (Amanda Redman) who recently botched a large hostage operation. Because of this embarrrasement to the police force, she is assigned to head a cold case department. The three men she is assigned to work for her are policemenn who retired years ago… years and years ago! (Dennis Waterman, James Bolam, and Alun Armstrong play the retired coppers.)

Alun Armstrong plays Brian – a manic/depressive (I believe). He is a sort of walking computer. He can recall facts, names, dates, just about everything that was pertinent to the cases when they occurred years ago. Brian is fine… when he’s on his medications.

Dennis Waterman plays Gerry, an aging Lothario. I have lost count of how many ex-wives he has. He is the (somewhat) tough copper… who still considers himself to be quite the lady’s man.

Jack Halford’s character (James) is still in love with his best friend and wife… who has been dead for several years. He has built a shrine to her in his back yard, which he visits regularly.

As for Amanda Redman’s character (Sandra) – while she respects these older men, she also has to keep them in check >>> reign them in, make them follow the politically correct rules that are enforced in today’s police department. These three … I guess “codgers” is the term I’m looking for – policed during the days when it was “acceptable” to rough-up suspects. Sandra has her work cut out for her!

Of course, this cold case squad has a tremendous success rate. What else could we expect? But, the cases aren’t as important (to me!) as the characters’ interactions. What is that old saying? “Getting there is half the fun.” Well, in this case, all the fun is getting there!

If you would like to see more TV and Movies suggestions, click here.

Robin Allen, Sofie Kelly, Leslie Kohler, & Roz Siegel : Four New Authors to the Cozy Mystery Site

Here are the four newest additions to the Cozy Mystery site. Remember that they have been recommended for me to add to the site by site readers. I have asked people to only recommend Cozy Mystery authors, as I add authors to the site without having actually read them … yet!

Robin Allen: Poppy Markham: Culinary Cop Mystery Series. I believe that this is actually the first of its “culinary type” mystery. This series features a health inspector in Austin.

Sofie Kelly: Magical Cats Mystery Series. This series is set in Minnesota, and features a librarian who solves mysteries with the help of her two previously stray, magical cats.

Leslie Kohler: Kohler writes Stand Alone mysteries. The first (Sins of the Border) is set in Scottsdale, Arizona. It features a suburbs’ mom who uses her ex-reporter skills in this case regarding illegal immigration.

Roz Siegel: Emily’s Place Mystery Series. The sleuth in this series is the owner of a high-end shoe shop that serves as a meeting place for lovers of fashionable shoes. Unfortunately, one of the stilettos is used for more than its intended purpose.

Thank You, All! & A Switch from Time Warner to DirectTV…

Thank you, all for your very kind posts about Sprite. She was our very special “best girl puppy” for many, many years. (I always have to add the “PUPPY” part >>> My daughter is gone so often that she has caught me calling Sprite my “best girl” a few times when she is home visiting, and prefers it when I add the “PUPPY” when referring to Sprite.)

I know I mentioned that my husband wants to move my computer desk from “Sprite’s bedroom” to our kitchen. We still plan to do that, but we are going to be moving my desk next weekend, because, it turns out that my husband has decided to get DirectTV installed in our house this weekend.

We have been getting a lot of blue screens with messages from Time Warner – in lieu of the shows we expected to tape. The message always says something about the network not being available, or some such thing. From all of the boards my husband has checked out online that deal with this very same problem, it means, quite simply, that Time Warner has too many people trying to access the high definition channels at the same time. When this happens, apparently Time Warner’s computer system simply cannot handle transmitting all of the channels, so they simply don’t allow you access to some of the non-network shows.

I tape several shows on the ID channel (Investigation Discovery), which is a channel that is consistently short-changed by Time Warner. I feel like we will be doing our part to help Time Warner with their problem of not being able to service all their paying customers during the peak television-viewing times. >>> At least this way, after this weekend, there will be one less home trying to access high definition channels, helping perhaps one other family get the service they expect!

MENU