I love a good foodie cozy mystery and Delilah's pizzas sound delicious. This time around, she has reluctantly agreed to cater a wellness retreat led by an overly demanding mindfulness influencer. When a guest is found dead in her zen tent, it’s up to Delilah and her usual crew to track down the killer.
There's a new police chief in town and she was quirky, I guess. I like it when the police and our amateur sleuths can get along and both are competent, but the way the chief brough Delilah into the case and setting up Capone undercover as a bartender in a town where literally everyone knows him, even if the retreat attendees don't, seemed odd.
The mystery itself was put together well. We had several suspicious people, and a couple of motives floating around. I felt like Delilah could have put together a few pieces quicker than she did. I also don't love that her ex owns...
Sprinkles and Sea Serpents is a fun book. Ella. our main character, has an interesting power - everyone in Winterspell Lake has some kind of magic, even if others are a bit leery of it. She's a former journalist, so the mystery of the missing women grabs her attention. I liked Ella for the most part, but she made some not great decisions. The mystery itself was good enough. I wasn't surprised by who the bad guy was, but there some unanswered questions at the end that will almost definitely come up in the next. I liked romantic interest, too. I thought they worked well together. I'll probably read #1.5 around Christmas....
Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead is not my typical mystery read. The problem is simple enough. Her client, Leon, wants her to find his Uncle Vic, an assistant district attorney who disappeared during Hurricane Katrina. But Claire is not a conventional detective, Vic was not always a nice guy, and New Orleans is suffering from post-traumatic-stress disorder.
Claire follows Jacques Silette and his manual, Détection. It's about recognizing clues not finding them, about allowing connections to reveal themselves. Claire is guided by the typical interviews and clues, but also visions, dreams, and drug-induced states. It's slower moving for a mystery and we get bits and pieces of her background and what brought her to where she is now, both mentally and physically.
New Orleans is a character in and of itself. Katrina has devastated the city and recovery is slow. It's a dark violent place for the people Claire interacts with, but it's also where they belong.
It's engrossing...
The Meg Lanslow series is one I dip in and out of. I always enjoy them, but it never quite makes it to my must-read list. I think I actually liked this one more than the last couple, even if the solution was a little unbelievable. I actually thought we were going to get to see Meg doing some blacksmithing at the beginning of this one, but no. Hoof and Hearth, a horse rescue, has temporarily lost the pasture they'd been using for their horses due to a legal battle and have to move the whole herd to Ragnar's estate, so it's all hands on deck. The horses have barely got settled in on the first night, when a storm blows in. And Meg and her husband find a dead man in the barn.
We've got several potential suspects and some good clues, but really it's the horses that stand out in this one. Several of them have clear personalities...
I think this might be the first sailing cozy mystery I've read. Anne is a teacher at the elementary school in her hometown and is a member of the local boat club. Following the women laser regatta, one of the competitors is killed and Anne becomes a suspect. She and her friend, Tim, the dockmaster at the club, start to investigate.
The mystery was good. We had several plausible suspects, good clues and a few red herrings. I do wish the author had trusted the reader a bit more, instead of repeating points over and over.
I liked Anne, but I didn't quite understand her. She's been a widow for 18 years, her husband died suddenly when they were in their twenties. Why is she now, right when a murderer is loose in town, becoming interested in Tim, whom she has known for at least a couple of years. And the whole couple of chapters where he leaves town and somehow...
Trixie is on her 25-anniversary cruise to Hawaii alone because her husband is a cheating jerk. And I do have to say she moved on well. She's determined to have fun and not fall for any of his pleading or mean jabs. She seems to take everything in stride and with a smile, even when she finds a dead body in her luggage and a ghost turns up to help her solve the mystery.
It's a fun, lighthearted mystery with plenty of romance. Trixie has two potential love interests, both crew. I'm not a fan of love triangles and I did kind of want her to just pick one, but it's only an 18-night cruise, and she'll never see either of them again, so what's the harm? And I might have peeked at some of the later blurbs in the series, so I'm willing to let it slide for now.
It's a fun book. I enjoyed Trixie and her new friends. It's...
