Cozy Mystery – Page 37 – Carol's Notebook

Beyond a Reasonable Stout by Ellie Alexander

October 9, 2019October 9, 2019 by Carol6 Comments

I'm not a beer drinker, but my husband and our friends are, so I hear a lot of beer talk. Fall is his favorite time of year for beer, and I think that was part of the reason I was attracted to Beyond a Reasonable Stout. I enjoyed learning a bit more about the brewing process; it's interesting and while I realized a lot had to go into it, I've never really read anything about the process. Oktoberfest is over and Sloan and Garrett are starting to work on their winter beers. Leavenworth is a town whose livelihood is the tourist industry and that centers around their craft breweries and their Bavarian-style town. It actually sounds like it would be a fun place to visit. And then Kristopher Cooper gets killed. Granted, just about everyone in town was angry at the anti-alcohol platform he was running on for re-election to city council, but who took it all the way to...

Haunted House Murder by Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, and Barbara Ross

September 19, 2019September 25, 2019 by Carol6 Comments

I love seasonal novella collections! Haunted House Murder contains three cozy mystery novellas. Each is part of series, but they all worked well as stand-alones for me. Out of the three, the only one I really enjoyed was Hallowed Out by Barbara Ross. Haunted House Murder, the first in the book, was lacking in a real plot. New people move into town, they're weird, let's all judge them. The amount of time Lucy spent complaining about having to take care of her grandson was annoying and I don't understand why her husband seemed to be incapable of helping at all. The mystery itself wasn't really much of a mystery, just people jumping to conclusions with little to no actual evidence. In Death By Haunted House, new people move into town, they're weird, let's all judge them. And guess, what? They haven't killed anyone either. Sorry, that was a spoiler but not a surprising one. At least this time, there actually was...

A Purrfect Alibi by Leighann Dobbs

August 29, 2019August 29, 2019 by Carol4 Comments

In A Purrfect Alibi, the Oyster Cove Guesthouse is full of psychics, mediums, tea readers, etc. all hoping to speak to the ghost of Jedediah Biddeford and find his treasure. Josie doesn't believe in ghosts and is really just happy to have paying guests, until—surprise, surprise—one of them ends up dead. Nero and Marlowe, the guest house cats, have a case to solve, and a ghost to deal with, because Jed is hanging around now, even if Josie doesn't know it. It's a cute enough story. The cats and Jed are fun. The killer's a little obvious, even if I didn't catch the motive until it was revealed. The Oyster Cover Guesthouse series is light and breezy. The books are perfect for lazy summer afternoons. This counts as 4 pts in the COYER Treasure Hunt (the last book in a series)....

A Whisker in the Dark by Leighann Dobbs

August 14, 2019August 29, 2019 by Carol2 Comments

A Whisker in the Dark was a fun, easy, silly read. Josie owns a guesthouse where people keep ending up dead. Well, this time around the first dead body is a skeleton from 300 years ago, but we end up with a murder soon enough—and it's probably no surprise with so many folks thinking there's a treasure buried on the guesthouse's property. So, the cats, Nero and Marlowe and their friends, are the real detectives here, although Josie does some investigating too. In Josie's defense, she's got a lot on her mind, with running the guesthouse, trying to learn how to cook, and flirting with the building inspector. The cats are pretty darn smart, and cats can get into places people can't and eavesdrop without being noticed. I'm still getting used to the cats talking to each other, but it does make the series stand out. The book is really about the characters, both human and feline. The mystery itself is...

The Readaholics and the Poirot Puzzle by Laura DiSilverio

July 24, 2019August 1, 2019 by Carol4 Comments

The Readaholics and the Poirot Puzzle is right up my aisle. Amy-Faye is an event planner, but more importantly, she's a member of a mystery book club. This month they're reading Murder on the Orient Express, one of my favorites, so of course when a murder occurs, more than one of the readaholics is thinking it might be a conspiracy. This is the first in the series I've read but I had no trouble jumping right into the characters and their lives. Amy-Faye has organized the grand opening of her brother's new brewery, but his business partner is found dead in the dumpster in the middle of the party—probably not good for business, definitely not good for her brother who gets arrested. Of course, Amy-Faye and the gang have to clear her brother's name and keep the brewery running. Amy-Faye and her friends are fun to hang out with. They each have their own careers and quirks, they're very different from each...

A Twist in the Tail by Leighann Dobbs

July 18, 2019August 1, 2019 by Carol2 Comments

First of all, A Twist in the Tail has talking cats. They don't talk out loud to people, but they talk to each other in English. They have conversations and find clues and discuss the best way to help their not so competent humans. It caught me off-guard. I knew there were going to be cats, just didn't realize the extent of their involvement, that they were also amateur detectives. I've read other Leighann Dobbs mysteries that didn't have talking animals and I don't think I could have been expected to know it based on the blurb. It turned out I enjoyed the book, so maybe it's just as well I was clueless since I'm not sure if I would have picked it up had I known. A Twist in the Tail is the first in a series, and it's a good start. It's fun and light-hearted but the mystery had plenty of clues for the cats to get Josie to...