This mystery is fresh and original and invokes the era of victory gardens, rationing, scrap metal drives and the music, fashion, movies and values of WWII 1940’s America. Set in Progress, a prosperous town with its own local newspaper the story is told from the perspective of Irene, acting editor-in-chief replacing her dad who is serving on the Pacific front. Irene was formerly limited to the women’s page but is running the paper following local stories and war news while managing staff and editing the paper. A series of anti-Semitic attacks and vandalism against shop owner and neighbors, is big local news which exposes the divisions between supporters of the war and those sympathetic to the Third Reich. That story overlaps another when her best investigative reporter takes off to follow up on a secret lead and is found dead, days later at the bottom of his cellar stairs. Meanwhile her mother rents a room to a young mysterious NYC singer Katherine who moves to town to work in the local Ironworks factory just re-tooled to produce massive quantities of parts for tanks, airplanes etc.
Continue reading “Front Page Murder by Joyce St. Anthony – A Homefront News Mystery”
The tart title hints at the importance of color in this 1st entry in a new series featuring a bright, enterprising interior decorator Hadley who is in town for a job interview and planning to stay at her aunt’s but instead is talked into house-sitting, pet sitting and an outdoor decorating project for a new client Kent who is leaving town for business but when he returns is throwing a surprise party for his fiancée and wants the outdoor area to be completely outfitted and decorated as part of the surprise. Hadley is thrilled and determined to get everything accomplished in time and is immersed in finding the perfect colors, decorative accents and furniture to style the pool and patio area when she suddenly finds herself trying to figure out what happened to her client’s fiancée who mysteriously disappears the night she unexpectedly arrives back in town.
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.
This is a roaring 20’s mystery featuring the spirited Jane Wunderly, a young widow traveling with her aunt and staying at the Mena House, a luxury resort situated outside Cairo, Egypt near some of the great pyramids. It is a cosmopolitan mystery with sharp pointed dialog and continental manners and customs but not stale or cliched because of the fresh and natural objective tone of Jane Wunderly’s narration.
For lovers of Sherlock Holmes, cozy mysteries and London, England this mystery is a match made in Holmes Heaven, I enjoyed it because I love mysteries set in England and cozies plus am a fan of Sherlock Holmes (especially the old Basil Rathbone movies made in the 1940s). This novel is part of a series set in New England but in ‘There’s a Murder Afoot’ English transplant Gemma and her American friends cross the big pond in January to attend a Sherlock Holmes Convention in Kensington, London.
This was the 1st in a new series for Barbara Ross and as much as I enjoyed the Maine Clambake Mystery series this one might be even better, possibly because I relate to the age and sensibility of Jane Darrowfield. As a retiree with extra time Jane gets involved in helping her friends and relatives out of some delicately tricky situations and gains a reputation that brings a paying opportunity to her door. The assignment is to infiltrate a closed community, a senior assisted and independent living community to provide insights and advice to the facility’s manager who is struggling to resolve some troubling dynamics in the community.
This was a multi faceted mystery, one mystery was about a murder, another about a long ago disappearance, another about the Loch Ness monster, guess which one was more interesting! The true star of this cozy was Nessie, I never believed in the Loch Ness monster figuring it was folklore but after reading this book I am not so sure! If you like books set in Scotland, featuring bookstores with quirky Scottish burrs dialogue you will really enjoy this fantastical mystery. To anchor it somewhat to reality it also feature an upcoming wedding, problems with the wedding dress, meeting the in-laws moments and vetting the venue. Other than that it is a mystery inside a mystery inside a mystery.
I loved this cozy because it is a delight, sort of like those tiny fascinator hats the Brits wear with such aplomb! It has warmth, humor, dogs and puppies, a truly horrible villain and a slightly eccentric Aunt. Plus a clever plot replete with intrique, plenty of horrible suspects and lots of good gossip. Also, it turns the sweetly romantic tone of so many cozies and twists it into an amusing variation. This series features a Yank, Scarlett, living and working in London at her British cousin’s famed hat shop selling her cousin’s creations to fashionable women and now crafting toppers for dogs too (I know it sounds slightly ridiculous but it works!).
I love quilts but this is the first mystery I have read where a quilt is an important clue. It was made by a well liked quilting circle member who dies while posing as a living mannequin at Community Quilt shop during the Fire and Ice town festival. Wow that plot could only happen in the north and most likely in the mid-west, yes it’s set in Wisconsin in January.