Book Review: Behind Every Murder

Title: Behind Every Murder

Author: J.D. Chantal

Date: 2026

Quote: "Crime fiction and real crime have always fed each other."

Margot, the English teacher, is a great developmental editor for crime stories. When someone starts stalking her, she knows who it is, and (though she won't admit it even to herself) she knows why. Does she know what to do to revise the story so that she's not the murderer's second victim?

That this short crime story is written in the way people learn and teach in writing clases is part of the fun of reading it. It's a fun read.

Book Review: Hollow Secrets

Title: Hollow Secrets

Author: Stump Lewis

Quote: "He reads the new message: You're already in it. Back off, or watch them bleed."

In the spooky little town called Wraiths Hollow, detective Jake and his friend Mara start receiving threatening messages that eventually help them solve a kidnapping case. 

This short novella reads like something that was dashed off and sent to book reviewers as a sort of trailer for a longer, more complex detective story. For a crime story it's relatively cheerful, though; the victim seems likely to survive. I wasn't motivated to buy the longer book, but mystery buffs might be.

New Book Review: A Murder Most Mulchy

Title: Murder Most Mulchy

Author: Pamela Gunn

Date: 2026

Quote: "The tiny white poodle...glances back at me...before veering straight between two rows of potted hydrangeas."

When Moxie, the Golden Retriever, decides to help Ruby, the human, catch Delilah, the tiny white poodle who belongs to some of her acquaintances, everyone skids through the wet soil at the flower show and Ruby lands right in the middle of somebody's display. Somebody she happened to dislike. Many people had quarrelled with Elliot but Ruby had done it most recently. And Elliot is also in the middle of his display, buried in hay, dead.

In order to stop people looking at her sidewise and muttering, Ruby decides, she has to find out whodunit. So she does. 

This is a short cozy mystery. If readers don't guess whodunit right away, they won't be guessing for long.  

New Book Review: Murder and the Coffee Bean Betrayal

Title: Murder and the Coffee Bean Betrayal

Author: Andi Cane

Date: May 25, 2026

Quote: "This is not what was ordered."

The coffee beans ordered in big heavy sacks have included sacks of what used to be called Hollow Roast--sacks with inner pockets that concealed smuggled goods, in this case collectible silver medallions. Hattie thinks that was just an historical curiosity until the man who's pronounced a sack "not what was ordered" is found dead. 

This is not the chatty, charming sort of cozy mystery where recipes and cute animals play an important role. Hattie learns a fair bit about coffee, collectibles, and smuggling, and sweats over a plan to make people willing to believe who committed the murder. It's not really a "hard-boiled" story, with only one murder solved by a little old lady and a few friends, but neither is it the kind you revisit after solving the mystery just for the pleasure of the characters' company. 

Book Review: Death at the Hargrove House

Title: Death at the Hargrove House

Author: Blossom Cole

Date: May 22, 2026

This is a full-length, tersely written murder mystery with lots of clues and plot twists. Even more than a mystery, though, it's a novel about the way we think of people.

Mystery stories can be told in different ways that suit different readers. When a clue is found, I'm more likely to pay attention and get into solving the mystery if I'm told what it is. "The dog smelled something" is a clue in itself; if I were there in real life I probably wouldn't know what the dog smelled either. "She picked something off the floor" might be a clue if we're watching "her" from outside the window, but if the story's being told from "her" point of view, I tend to lose patience with the detective who doesn't tell me what she picked up and why. If I were there in real life and didn't see the object first, I'd have a good look at that bag! If you enjoy the micro-mystery of trying to guess what amateur detective Mari (short for Marigold) has spotted, you will enjoy this book and want to buy the author's other published book about her, too. 

If you enjoy a study of how emotions creep in and distort our most logical thinking...I would have preferred a counter-stereotype study of how this works for a man, but that dynamic is easy to observe in the real world after all. This is an excellent study of how it works for a woman. 

Some readers will also appreciate that only one character is murdered in the time frame of the story. There's a second murder, but it occurred a long time ago. I like detectives who can do something with the evidence from one murder and not wait for another one.

Some will like the mix of Mari's hardheaded logical approach with the cozy atmosphere of her small-town bakery and cute dog. Ginger is a "goldendoodle," a "designer breed" produced by crossing golden retrievers with poodles. Some people might enjoy and draw out the lovable goofball side such a dog probably inherited from its retriever ancestors. Mari appreciates and draws out her pet's sensitive, quietly observant side. 

Some will enjoy the slow progress of Mari's friendship with a police detective she still calls by his family name, Cross. He might have been a bit "cross" with her, even seeming to work at "cross purposes," in the first volume of what feels like a building series. He respects her and Ginger now. "You work well together," someone tells Mari, who bristles: "He does his job and I do mine." "That's what I mean," she's told. Will they become a couple? Will they become a role model of sex-free friendship? Keep reading...

New Book Review: Deadly Deeds

Title: Deadly Deeds 

Author: Tara Benton

Date: 2026

Quote: "My grandmother didn't just leave me the bookstore. She left me a legal obligation to actually be there."

Which would mean leaving the steady, secure job she doesn't actually like much. While Julie's thinking it over, however, another renter in her apartment turns up dead in the hallway. A combination of normal and paranormal clues lead Julie to suspect he was murdered and find the murderer.

It's a cozy mystery so you know where this is leading. Julie will decide to get out of the city and take over the bookstore. There will be mysteries her latent psychic talents will allow Julie to solve in the small town. We meet the cat who will be her companion, in this volume, and we can be reasonably sure there'll be a romance, given that Julie is young and single. This first book is well enough written that cozy mystery fans are likely to want the others. 

Book Review: First Touch

Title: First Touch

Author: Teyla Rachel Branton

Date: 2017

Publisher: White Star

ISBN: 978-1-939203-99-1 

Quote: "I'm not psychic. I only read imprints."

Autumn Rain, whose late father changed his name from Douglas to Winter when he married Summer, sees vivid moving pictures of the memories other people have left on things they've touched. In this novel, a police detective enlists her in the search for a serial murderer. 

This is not a pleasant story to read but, for somebody Out There, it may address post-traumatic stress. I hope so. I didn't enjoy it because it's far too well written for its subject material. If you are at a point in therapy where you want to think and talk about the details of how someone goes about torturing and killing children, this book is for you. It's intense. Your therapist should probably agree to talk to you at any time you feel a need during the week or so after reading.

There is, by now, a series. Autumn travels with the detective, pointing out the site where her psychic imprints tell her crimes occurred, and they bond by cornering criminals together. They have a slow-burn romance--slow because their involvement with horrific crimes distracts them from wanting to start new relationships. This series was published with the name "Teyla Branton" on the cover, and there's another series of more readable fiction published with the name "Rachel Branton."

I tagged this one "Women's Issues" because hatecrime against women and their children seems to be the most urgent "issue" of concern to women these days.

Book Review: Shepherd of Wolves

Title: Shepherd of Wolves

Author: R.J. King

Date: 2021

Quote: " [B]efore he had his next guest over...Edmund made sure that there weren't any visible remains from the last one."

Trigger warnings: Absolutely nobody is going to enjoy this book. It's about a serial murderer and a police detective. The gory scenes are "tastefully" narrated, but there are a lot of them. People who enjoy this type of book like the satisfaction of having the murderer caught. This book ends with him still at large, with a suggestion that the detective may be so discouraged that there won't even be a sequel. 

Meh. The serial murderer's method is consistent. The detective knows who he is. When the detective hears of a similar crime in a different town, he can go out there and nail the murderer to the wall. If he has the energy left. So it's one of those "Lady or the Tiger," you pick the ending, sort of stories. 

For those looking for male point of view, action and adventure (at least the protagonist observes it, and seethes with frustration because he's not the one doing it), and a deeply decent Black male protagonist (even if, at fifty-two, he's starting to think of himself as "the old man"), this book has those things too. You will like Detective Wright, who's been wrong before, and knows it. I only wish that, even if he is too "old" to bring the murderer in, himself, the story had assured readers that Wright had found someone who would.

As things are, this novel is too much like the real news.

Book Review: Crime in the Country

Title: Crime in the Country

Author: Victoria Kosky

Date: 2021

ISBN: 9798544080916 

Quote: "Something bad happened. Years ago, before you were born. I saw something and now he wants to kill me."

Part of the trouble with being a Mafia family is the need to tell "little lies everywhere," which is the subtitle of this novel. Joe, the son to whom Gabriella makes the explanation quoted above when he's protesting yet another sudden change of address, doesn't know that his mother is hiding from his father--or was he the father?--anyway, Gabriella's ex-husband who killed Gabriella's other man and is still "after" Gabriella. Gabriella doesn't know who her real father was, either. During the stay in Nabangie, the small town they move to at the beginning of the story, both mother and son will find out lots of things about their family. 

Violence: relatively low, considering that this is a story about professional criminals (only Gabriella really wants to do honest work and marry an honest man). We're told of several murders. Only one shoot-out takes place "on stage," and one of the shooters is old and the other one thoroughly deserves what he gets.

Sex: not lingered on in graphic detail, but when Gabriella finds a law-abiding man some of the kissing and petting take place "on stage."

Language: remarkably polite for a story about criminals. Even the Italian words into which people lapse, under stress, are mostly polite. (The nastiest criminal does call a woman something rude before hitting her.) 

Sense of humor: Kosky describes herself as writing crime novels with a sense of humor. The characters aren't exactly clowns; they don't seem to know that they're stereotypes, either, but Kosky does and is having a good time with the stereotypes. 

New Book Review: Murder Mystery and a Very Good Boy

Title: Murder Mystery and a Very Good Boy

Author: A.P. Wells

Date: 2026

Quote: "She skidded her way over to the runaway truck ramp and came to a slow, jolting halt in the snow."

Driving through mountains in winter, Hazel skids right into a murder mystery. Well, not so much of a mystery as a damsel-in-distress thriller. The only serious suspect identifies himself as an antagonist right away. The purpose of this short "prequel" novel is mainly to introduce Hazel and show how, although she hasn't thought she was in a position to own a pet, she becomes the owner of the murder victim's dog. The dog makes both harmful and helpful contributions to the story. You'll like him.

And as usual with Book Funnel books, if you like the first e-book, there's a series. This is Volume 0.5. Hazel was on her way to Volume 1 when the car broke down. There will be more.

New Book Review: Blood Lines

Title: Blood Lines

Author: E.G. Ellory

Date: 2026

Quote: "Jodie Walsh had wondered when the next call would come, used to the ways of Fenburne now--the village with a striking landscape and bloody history."

Fenburne is one of those fictional places that see more murders within a few years than real towns of their size see in centuries. All the while some of the villagers are perfectly safe, because the village has been created as a place for some characters to show their skills at detecting whodunit. Jodie Walsh, her mentor Sam Hyatt, and their colleague Jim Thompson, are quite all right. Their role in the village is to ensure that, though nasty things keep happening, badness is always contained by law and order. Someone always has to bring the murderers to justice.

The murder of Tom Landon and Esme Halland is typical for Fenburne: a nice clean case, no gruesome details, a group of suspects including one who commits a violent assault during the investigation. Those who enjoy solving fictional mysteries should enjoy it. 

 

Book Review: Sleuths at the Spa

Title: Sleuths at the Spa

Author: Vikki Walton

Date: 2023

Quote: "I couldn't help over-hearing and while the drink may have been incorrect there's no reason to have pushed the tray..."

Let me guess: The writer known as Vikki Walton works at a spa, or her granddaughter does. In her idea of a proper spa, when an employee brings a customer the wrong drink, nobody considers how the customer felt--startled? disgusted? nervous because she was up to something she knew she shouldn't have been doing? Our heroine, Viviane, never considers that it's not her business, nor does anyone try to smooth things over. Everyone agrees that Mrs. Wilson, the customer who pushed the drink away, is a horrible, terrible, awful person and the employee deserves a promotion. 

While waiting for Viviane to confess her lesbian feelings for the employee, Callie (she doesn't, but it's all right, Viviane, that kind of thing is legal now), I forgot to notice any clues that anyone else had means, motive, and opportunity to murder Mrs. Wilson. But I will say this to students doing student labor jobs. People who tell you to feel entitled to better working conditions, more ego pampering, pay raises, etc., are not your friends. Callie did have means, motive, and opportunity but we're told up front that she didn't do it. One of the people who rush to soothe Callie's little ego is doing so in order to distract attention from the fact that she's also setting up things to make Callie look guilty. Now that part I can believe.

Book Review: Claws Clues and a Deadly Detour

Title: Claws Clues and a Deadly Detour

Author: Pandora Gale

Date: 2026

Quote: "[B]est stay in your room tonight. Inn gets...restless."

When her car broke down, Crowe thought she heard a psychic voice calling her to go to the inn in town and help someone. When she lay down in her room in the inn, she dreamed about a big fluffy Maine Coon cat being locked up because people were calling him "the Phantom Cat" and associating him with human trouble. So she uncages the cat and immediately there's a murder for them to solve. 

The cat is in the lead. He has psychic powers. In his past he was worshipped by humans who called him Lucifer. He doesn't like most humans or wish them well. He likes scaring the guilty into confessing. I think this book was written with more comedic than satanic intentions, but it's the kind of book that used to trigger "satanic panic." 

If you read Lucifer as an animal who' s been abused by Satanists rather than an old school witch burner's notion of a familiar demon in animal form, you might want to read the rest of a series about Lucifer and Crowe. I wouldn't spend money. The cute, whimsical, funny part of this series is going to be a phobia trigger for someone you know. There are better cozy mysteries.

Book Review: Murder on the Deck

Fair disclosure: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an advance review...which I failed to post on Friday because I didn't schedule enough reading time. Although it came through Book Funnel, this is a full-length book, with lots of possibilities and plot twists and cozy-mystery-solving fun. It went live over the weekend. You can buy it now.

Title: Murder on the Deck

Author: Avery Kent

Date: 2026

Quote: "This is the Oceanic Emerald's first Alaskan cruise."

Have you been on an Alaskan cruise, Gentle Readers? I never have, but Avery Kent has convinced me that it would have been fun. If you enjoy travelling you will want to see the sights the characters in this book are seeing while they're plotting, committing, and solving a murder. Apart from a scene in which a police detective called Brooks grills a suspect called Dunn, adding inappropriate music to my mental image of the scene, that's the worst thing about this book :-)

(Some mystery buffs think a murder mystery needs two bodies.  This one has two bodies found on the deck, but one's only stunned.)

Loretta Lafayette is taking the cruise with her friend Alistair, his niece Amy, Amy's friend Liam, and Chester the Chihuahua. Loretta is a confirmed amateur detective but she doesn't solve murders alone. She talks through the clues with her trusted friends. Though Alistair hopes for a peaceful cruise, after two other cruises on which Loretta found murders to solve, soon a man who's been easy for a lot of people to hate is found dead on the deck. Several of the people who had reasons to hate him turn out to be on the ship, and the cozy family group are soon playing Loretta's favorite game.

If you like traditional close-mouthed detectives, Loretta's technique may put you off. If you lose patience with complicated mystery novels because you don't want to memorize the details of who was where when, you'll love Loretta and her friends. I give the novel bonus points for having Chester make an important discovery...that does not solve the mystery.

This is a delightful detective novel, and if you like it, there are many more where it came from. Kent is the author of four other series, including the two other volumes (so far) about Loretta Lafayette.

New Book Review: A Cupcake to Die For

Title: A Cupcake to Die For

Author: Camilla Clove

Date: 2025

Quote: "The scream cut through the sea breeze just as I was about to take my first bite of Aunt Mira's lavender cupcake."

One of Aunt Mira's friends and customers has just been murdered with an overdose of medication. Jasmine, who just came back from the city to inherit an uncle's business, wants to prove her family and friends innocent. The mystery's not very hard to solve but, after all, this short story is only an introduction to a series of longer stories. 

The names of several characters and the bakery's specialties give this story a whiff of Middle Eastern flavor--Syrian? Lebanese?--but in one important way it strikes me as an American story. Jasmine is fairly young and single. In this book she meets a nice police officer who takes care of the murderer, but it's traditional that if there is a love interest in mystery novels it develops slowly...and in this one we're told that in the next volume Jasmine is going to meet another nice single man. How many eligible bachelors are going to be useful contacts for solving mysteries before Jasmine settles down with one of them? Remains to be seen.  

Book Review: A Dash of Murder

Title: A Dash of Murder

Author: Pearl Parsons

Date: 2025

Quote: "The road sign ahead...a battered wooden post with three arrows pointing in different directions... simply sat there...pointing left."

So Sylvia turns left. As it turns out, the country inn she's inherited is located in a different town than the one she reaches by turning left; she should have followed a different arrow. As a guest at someone else's inn, she's instantly drawn into a circle of quiet friendliness and warmth, then as suddenly--when the electricity goes out--flung into a murder mystery. Well, it's not first-degree murder, but one of the nice people in the town she's visiting does unthinkingly kill another one. And he injures the dog that has befriended Sylvia.

A lot of thought went into this cozy mystery. Not just lining up the clues, but thinking about the people (including the dog) and their lives and feelings. In the series of longer mysteries she's plotting, Parsons wants readers to know, she intends to think about the people as if she were Dorothy Sayers.

If Dorothy Sayers' are just about the only murder mysteries you like, you'll probably want the series that follow this mini-book.  

Book Review: A Taste for Murder

Title: A Taste for Murder

Author: Daisy Belle

Date: 2024

Quote: "You finally drum up the courage to reopen Granny's bakery, and one of your first customers kicks the bucket."

Not seriously suspected of poisoning the mean-mouthed critic's cream puff, Samantha still feels a need to find out whodunit. The trouble is that several people had motives to want the victim dead. None of them seemed violent. Can Samantha find out which of them is violent before that person kills again?

This being a cozy mystery, she'll have a confession in 24 hours or less. I think the pace of this short-short e-book diminishes its credibility, but it's only a fictional, theoretical puzzle to solve anyway.  

Book Review: Charts and Clues

Title: Charts and Clues

Author: Widdy Thorne

Date: 2025

Publisher: Clever Finch

Quote: "Aunt Estella had...taught her to listen to the trees and believe that healing isn't always found in medicine."

So Isabel's glad to inherit her aunt's cabin and clinic in a small mountain town. But someone doesn't want her there. Someone didn't want her aunt there. Someone doesn't want her aunt's old friend the pharmacist there...and he dies after taking a pill that her aunt seems to have prescribed! Is Isabel absolutely sure her aunt died of natural causes? Can she solve the mystery before the murderer goes from threats to violence?

This short e-book seems to move faster than the pace of small town life, to me, but it's a satisfactory mystery with clues, red herrings, and a logical solution.  

Book Review: Write Me a Ghost Story

Title: Write Me a Ghost Story

Author: Philippa Wozniak

Date: 2023

Publisher: Neo Leaf Press / Kindle

Quote:  "You're from the graveyard? I was up there earlier. There are no houses..."

Myrtle Glubber, the grumpy, food-loving middle-aged writer who's better at solving mysteries than at writing them, is at a writers' conference on Hawaii. Right away she meets a charming Hawaiian gentleman with an oldfashioned accent that might be British, or British-influenced. He's called Mac, short for Makani. When they meet, Myrtle asks him where he's from. He points in the direction of the local graveyard. 

During the conference, two people die. Heart attacks or murder? It's murder, of course, and Myrtle will find out whodunnit and why. It seems that at least one of them saw legendary ghosts. Myrtle doesn't believe in ghosts but she does believe in the hallucinogenic properties of some native plants.

Everyone likes Mac. He doesn't seem to be pursuing Myrtle, though he's helpful to her. Because their goals for the rest of their lives lie in different directions? Because Myrtle is nobody's pin-up girl? Or did he really come from the graveyard? Wozniak leaves the question open, as Mac is seen walking away just before Myrtle sees the gravestone of a man called Makani who died at about the age Mac appears to be.

Myrtle's charmless personality may be meant as a warning to the kind of readers who most typically enjoy cozy murder mysteries, but her adventures are fun with a sort of dry ironic humor that sneaks up on the reader. I enjoy them. If you like cozy mysteries that don't involve slow-burn romances, psychic powers, or animals, you'll probably enjoy them too.

Book Review: Promotions and Poisons

Title: Promotions and Poisons

Author: L.C. Turner

Quote: "Susan would argue with me just for the sake of arguing, evne if she didn't actually disagree iwht me."

Nobody much liked Susan Smith. (Even her author didn't like her. Turner had to know she was naming this character after one of the more loathsome female murderers of all time.)  The question is who felt desperate enough to murder her. Narrator Presley (that's a female given name now) and her superficially collegial competitors are all suspects and hence motivated to find out which of them did the deed. 

It's a very simple cozy mystery so it may not matter, but one detail rang glaringly false to me. A character asks another character, suspiciously, "How did you know that oleander is poisonous?" Child. When I was a wee tot, every two-year-old in California was close enough to an ornamental oleander to have the flower pointed out to us and to be told, "If you ever have to touch that, wash your hands right away. Just the amount of sap that might get on your hands could be enough to kill you." The suspicious character would be the one who might be asked, "You say you didn't know that oleander is poisonous?"

Maybe it's different for the young...