Three of my favorite cozy writers serve up a St. Patrick’s Day themed trio of mysteries set in coastal Maine and the result is a dark but slightly sweet brew with a kick, just like Irish Coffee. Though I find holiday themed trilogies vary in quality this one delivered suspense, entertainment and solid plots without being farfetched or tired.
The Leslie Meier mystery opens with Lucy Stone doing a special feature article on local teenagers who are competing in a regional Celtic Irish step dancing contest and Lucy travels to Portland to attend. What starts out as a fun and spirited event is ruined by an embarrassing accident to the most talented dancer and accusations fly exposing the ambitions and loyalties of the dancers and their protective mothers. Later on one of the parents is found mysteriously dead and the ex-husband becomes the primary suspect. The rivalries spill over into other town Continue reading “Irish Coffee Murder – Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, Barbara Ross”
This holiday cozy is a seasonal and suspenseful mystery spiced with some Hollywood glamour and drama set in the seaside town of Santa Sofia. It’s the 7th in the Bread Bakery series and features Ivy Culpepper who works at the tourist town’s famous bread bakery. The bakery is hired by Eliza Fox a young Hollywood star, to cater a glitzy Victorian themed Christmas party and Ivy is invited to discretely photograph the festivities. The party ends suddenly when the body of notorious tabloid reporter is discovered dead on the seaside rocky shore plunged from the backyard cliff.
This is a new series that combines two no fail cozy settings, a tea room with its fragarent brews, yummy scones, sandwiches and pastries and a Cape Cod sea side setting. To this recipe add zest with a testy, sharp tongued grandmother Rose; humor with a slightly wacky exuberant wanna be novelist friend Bernie and ground it with the steady workaholic granddaugher Lily who owns and cooks for the tea room conveniently located in a stone cottage on the adjacent grounds of her grandmother’s roomy Victorian B&B. To spice things up add a hunky English gardener and a mysterious dark haired son of the nearly bankrupt neighbor who is trying to sell his house to a developer with a very iffy reputation.
Fans of Antique Roadshow will enjoy the plot of this mystery which features an expert Book Appraiser famed for his TV appearances who is stabbed during the Valentine’s Day fete at a local mansion. And as the mystery deepens and more suspects come to light the Valentine’s theme is turned upside down, and instead of roses and romance, it’s a story of missed chances, and romances ending in the worst possible ways and is about the other side of ‘happy ever afters’ that color this cozy – not the red of roses but of revenge. The heart of the book is the relationship between Aunt Iphy who owns the popular Book Tea shop and her niece Callie who also works there, they are good friends and since Callie organized the Valentine’s Day event she gets involved with the aftermath of the murder and eventually so does Iphy.
The latest book is my favorite in the Victoria Square Mystery series which features the spunky and determined entrepreneur Katie Bonner who runs an indoor crafts market, sort of like Etsy but in a brick and mortar. She is also manager and owner of a tea room, is the organizer for the local Merchants Association and is dating her landlord. So she has her hands full but this a cozy mystery so it’s not too long before there is a fatal accident in which she is a witness and a victim.
There are many culinary themed cozy series and many of them make me hungry but this one takes the (chocolate) cake prize. Maybe it’s because I am from New England and maybe it’s because I have been to Eastport and maybe it’s because I love to bake but the recipes described in this cozy sound criminally delicious. The Chocolate Moose is the bakery café that is owned by Jake and Ellie and if you have read the other Home Repair is Murder series by Sarah Graves you know all about Jake’s story and how and why she lives in remote Eastport, Maine with her husband, her dad and her housekeeper and step-Mom, her son and daughter-in-law and the baby and all the rest of the characters. This series continues with the same characters but takes it into a new direction with the bakery cafe, The Chocolate Moose, in this 2nd entry in the series.
