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”
The seaside town of Whitby, overlooked by the ruisn of a famous medieval Abbey high on a cliff, is the setting for this new series featuring Liz, a widowed early retiree who moves to Whitby, buys the adjacent Kipper and Gull Cottages to live in and renovate. For company she rescues Nelson an English Bull terrier, and while walking one morning in the church graveyard near the ancient Abbey they find the dead body of the well-known Professor Crowby recently working on curating the Abbey museum collection.
I love this series, it’s a traditional cozy set in England narrated by a transplanted American, Dorothy Martin, a 60-ish widow happily re-married to a retired English Chief Constable, Alan Nesbitt, who lives in a quintessential English cottage in a cathedral town in southeast England. Dorothy is unabashedly an Anglophile and mixes enthusiasm with sharp humor and sometimes tact. She forges ahead in life but this energy is tempered by common sense and her impulsive, intuitive style and outspokenness are softened by shrewdness and the ability to connect random dots into a cohesive pattern. She is also very funny in her observations and descriptions are effortlessly entertaining. This lady has style and it’s not just her hats!
This latest entry, the 26th, in the endearing Lucy Stone Mystery series was not more of the same holiday themed home spun cozy, instead it was more of a thriller than a malice domestic mystery. I literally could not put it down because the suspense becomes riveting, what begins as a typical cozy gradually develops into a rather dark and frightening tale.
The latest entry in this long running and excellent series featuring China Bayles, a former high powered attorney who now owns an herbal shop and cafe in Pecan Springs, Texas is all about orchids, especially the orchid that produces vanilla beans. This series always features a key herb, spice or flower which becomes intertwined with the plot in the same way a vine winds around a post, naturally and effortlessly. The mysteries also educate on the history and uses of the title herb, spices, flower or other botanical, and this one features vanilla. It’s fascinating to me since I like gardening and herbs and cooking with natural ingredients so I enjoy these mysteries for their focus on plants and their varied uses, it makes one realize how many wonderful products we use to flavor our foods or use for healing that come from plants.
This series features a Southern gal in sunny California married to a police detective whom she met when she was a cop. Savannah is now a Private Investigator who calls on a loosely knit group of relatives and friends known as the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency to help with research and investigating suspects.
Winter on the Outer Banks of North Carolina is a quiet time of year normally but not in this cozy when a bridal shower in the lighthouse library for Lucy’s cousin ends with a call to 911 when a relative suddenly collapses and dies. Suspicion falls on Josie who as the bride-to-be is less than thrilled with her relatives trying to hi-jack her wedding plans for a casual, fun wedding into an ornate, over the top affair not to mention the outrageous flirting and posturing of the victim who is using it as an opportunity to build a top tier event planning business. And murder most foul, Josie had baked the lovely GF desserts that turn out to contain poison, so she is the favorite suspect of the state police detective.
This series epitomizes the classy intrepid sleuth who lives a very full life running a quaint charming tea shop, hobnobbing with Charleston’s arts and antiques crowd and chasing down clues with the tea sommelier and antiques expert Drayton at her side in between attending benefits and volunteering for charities…oh and she also jogs with her rescue dog Earl Grey. Her home is a Tudor style cottage in a good neighborhood and though she lives alone her boyfriend is around often. What a life! And she is naturally a classic beauty with a versatile wardrobe and a friend who is on hand for fashion advice and owns a chic boutique. But despite her enviable life style, cool intellect and ability to multi-task which the rest of us can only aspire to Theodosia Browning is undoubtedly fun to hang out with in this newest cozy.
