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.

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...

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.

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: The Missing Bride

Title: The Missing Bride

Author: Zanna Mackenzie

Date: 2015

Quote: "If I do manage to complete my apprenticeship...the agency will offer me a job."

Amber, an apprentice for a private detective agency ("We're not the police. We're better than the police"), is assigned to find out who kidnapped the bride-to-be just before a big expensive wedding. 

At least it's a twist on the usual mystery and the usual romantic comedy. I don't know what to say. For those who like this kind of plot, I suppose this is the sort of thing youall like. I did not get into it or suspend disbelief, but that's me. 

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 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: 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...

Book Review: Murder by Post

Title: Murder by Post

Author: Rachel Ford

Quote: "Alec Thatch had been born Alice Thatch, daughter--not son--of the stablemaster."

Living a hundred years ago when such things were simpler to do, Alice Thatch has reinvented herself as her twin brother Alec in order to marry Meredith Lancaster. That's not the plot of this e-book or any of the e-books about them. Merry and Alec aren't police officers but they find themselves solving murder mysteries. In this story they find a fellow renter in the same building, whom they know slightly, dead from arsenic poisoning after eating a fruitcake that had come by mail. 

If this plot description appeals to you, you'll probably like the book, and may want to collect the series.

New Book Review: Black Forest Cake Murder

Title: Black Forest Cake Murder

Author: Karen McSpade

Date: 25 November 2025 

Quote: "I want to make sure I don't miss anything important when preparing for the food critic's visit."

Veronica the food critic is so influential, the Sinclair Sisters really want to impress her. When she seems unimpressed by the selection they have in their bakery, they beg her to come back and sample the Black Forest cake they're about to bake fresh, just for her. Veronica agrees to do that. But before she can try the cake, she's found bludgeoned to death in an alley. With what appears to be Mr. Sinclair's souvenir rolling pin.

Funnily enough, the other baker in town bought a similar souvenir rolling pin. To the sisters' surprise, their father and the other baker have been in competition all their lives; their rivalry developed a bitter quality when their mother chose their father over the other baker. But would the other baker really commit a murder and try to blame their father? 

Noelle, the oldest sister, takes responsibility for Veronica's visit and for finding out whodunit. Holly, the middle sister, does more of the leg work because she's in love with police detective Chad, though it has to be said that Chad seems unappreciative, unromantic, and unobservant in this book; I'm not convinced he's good enough for Holly. Joy, the youngest, is really waiting for readers to vote for this sequel to become Book 2 of a long series, though she contributes her bit to solving the murder. 

If you liked this family in Christmas Cakes and Crooks, you'll probably vote for a full-length series, and you'll probably enjoy Book 2. 

As a bonus readers get a recipe for a modern, lower-calorie Black Forest cake. It can be done as a traditional two-layer cake with extra layers of fillings and frostings, but traditionally Black Forest cake is in the torte or stack-cake family, with four thin layers separated by different combinations of whipped cream, cherries, and chocolate. Whatever. The recipe will not make enough for four thick layers as shown on the cover of the book. Two thick or four thin. Anyone who likes cake will probably enjoy it.

Book Review: Hollow of Lies

Title: Hollow of Lies

Author: J.J. Jax

Date: 2024

Quote: "For most people, Pine Hollow would be idyllic."

For Emily, Noah, and Oliver, it's the little town where a would-be whistleblower was murdered. They work for three different law enforcement agencies and don't initially like each other. They bond by facing the dangers of investigating the murder together.

So, what do they find, exactly? Where, for that matter, is Pine Hollow? We are not told. This "novella" is all about the main characters' emotions; those emotions are felt as if they were taking place inside the mind of a young hormone-ridden writer. The writer is enjoying the "thrills" of working out the emotional core of the plot. The novella would be a more effective "thriller" if the writer had done the research to put in enough information from the real world to convince us that the characters might be real people who are feeling their feelings about real events. At one point we're told that, minutes after finding a box of documents, the characters know they've found all the evidence to prove the case. What evidence would that be? What case? We are not told...

Some readers may like to meet Emily, Noah, and Oliver. What mattered to the writer has been written into this book; the characters' feelings and relationships are well enough drawn to interest readers. I think the book would have been much better if the author had taken the time to build a scene for the characters to emote and relate upon.

Book Review: Wedding Day Brews

Title: Wedding Day Brews

Author: Bella Colby

Date: 2023

Publisher: Beresford

ISBN: 978-1-913422-14-1

Quote: "My dog was talking to me. To passers-by it sounds like he whines a lot, but I understand every word he says."

Skye, a Scottish witch or psychic as seen on "Charmed," had mixed feelings about returning to the British coastal town that caught her eye. After her divorce she'd become involved with an environmentalist group but the terms of having charges dropped, after she helped sink a ship, specified that she stay in the UK for two years. She'll need a job, of course. Applying for the first job she's told about, she's passed over in favor of somebody's obnoxious niece, then finds the said niece dead in the parking lot. 

Skye has been to witch school but used only one spell even there. She'll use her spell, and rely on protection by her familiar dog, while solving the mystery but she will use logic, not magic, to find out whodunit. It's a fairly short, simple plot; if you guess whodunit (I did), there's still the suspense of finding out how Skye can prove it.  

This series was published in Britain before ChatGPT, and is much better written than the series-opening short mysteries I've been receiving since. I don't think Colby is really trying to write like Joan Aiken, Mary Stewart, or Peter Dickinson, but her voice may appeal to people who miss theirs. 

Book Review: The Accidental Witch the Half Witch

Title: The Accidental Witch Book 1 The Half Witch

Author: P.J. Tremblay

Date: 2023

Publisher: P.J. Tremblay

ISBN: 979-8223718871

Quote: "I'm an accidental witch. My parents are Normies, or non-magic folk."

That's how Lily Hawthorn, whose name isn't mentioned until the second half of chapter two, introduces herself in this series-launching cozy mystery. A disagreeable old woman called Abigail has died, there's evidence that a European botanical well known to witches was involved, and Lily has to clear her best school friend of suspicion. 

Neither magic nor logic really counts for as much as the feeling that characters are too nice to have Done It, but if you feel that there's just something about the convenient loss of a politician called Abigail, you'll enjoy this cozy and even mildly comic mystery. 

The trailers for additional books at the end aren't to be missed. In addition to a sequel about Lily, there's a series about a ghost detective and a couple of theological books by another member of the Tremblay family, a Christian minister. I don't know about the positions he takes but he's certainly not a victim of "satanic panic."  

Book Review: Lights Camera Murder at the Castle

Title: Lights Camera Murder at the Castle

Author: Avery Kent

Date: 2025

Quote: "[A] whole two weeks of filming here! With a complete takeover of the castle..."

The fictional Castle Frobisher has been rented to the cast and crew of a TV series. Producer Don, or Donald, or Donahue, Sullivan, or Sully, is a certifiable bunghole. Everyone else has reasons to hate him so the only questions are when someone will write him permanently out of the show and how Kitty McCray and the other castle residents will prove whodunit. 

If you think a good mystery novel needs a murder, but a good detective ought to be able to solve one murder without waiting for the murderer to make it a series, then this and the other planned and actual "Castle mysteries" ought to be precisely your cup of tea. 

My review copy contained a few things that may have been cleared up in the final published copy. (The same character is described as "tall" in one scene and "small" in another. I used to know a gifted actress, and that was how people described her, so this gave me a vivid impression of the character. Still, when the victim has been stabbed in the back it might be relevant to the plot to know whether a character is 5'2" and good at towering over people or 5'10" and good at looking up to them, or maybe 5'6" and capable of both.) 

It's an entertaining story, in any case. I think my favorite scene is the one where the characters agree that, though shocked by the murder, they're all glad that Don's gone. Then there's the one where Lord Frobisher, who as an aristocrat can afford to flout any and all stereotypes, starts reminiscing about the traditional cross-dressing comedies his and Kitty's schools used to stage and decided to cross-dress again for old times' sake. He's not trying to cheer up the TV people; he's ignoring them and behaving like himself in his own home. And there's the cat shown on the cover, and also a dog, who gambol through the scenes and occasionally call attention to a clue...

Book Review: Busman's Honeymoon

Title: Busman’s Honeymoon

Author: Dorothy Sayers

Date: 1937

Publisher: Harper & Row

ISBN: 0-06-080823-3

Length: 370 pages

Quote: “Peter Wimsey is married—yes, actually married—to that extraordinary young woman...Peter must be forty-five if he’s a day.”

A “busman’s holiday” was a leisure trip in the bus. In this volume of their adventures Lord and Lady Peter Wimsey find themselves solving a murder mystery on their honeymoon.

Sayers had already explained the rule under which, upon marriage to Lord Peter, Harriet Vane acquired the title “Lady Peter” rather than, more logically, Lady Harriet. Possibly the off-putting sound of this title has something to do with the fact that she remains plain Harriet to herself and her friends.

Anyway, she’d helped Lord Peter solve a few other cases since he proved her innocent of the murder of her ex-boyfriend, and now they’re full partners in crime—solving them, that is. Those who’ve found Partners-for-Life will appreciate this fictional rendition of something rare and wonderful. This couple’s passion for each other is matched only by their passion for solving murder mysteries. If it makes them the most eccentric aristocrats in England, it may make them the happiest. The joy they feel at this time in their lives would probably have sustained them if their first detective adventure as a married couple had involved gruesome murders, but, perhaps out of compassion for readers, Sayers gives them a case distinguished by its cleanness.

Sayers, a Christian, never gave Lord Peter Wimsey the emotional comfort of religion. (He’s had a Christian education, has clergymen as friends, and goes around quoting Christian literature, but he lost any faith in a “personal” God in the trenches in the 1914 war.) In her mind the only really religious, as distinct from cultural, Christian element in her detective stories was that she refused to “cheapen life” by inventing unlovable stick figures who exist only to be murdered. In her novels Lord Peter’s whimsical mind, always dredging up quotes and fun facts, always guarantees a Comedy element; his empathy for the victims always guarantees a Tragedy element; and his relationship with unaccountably coy Harriet—who didn’t want to be accused of marrying him for his money, but in this volume we learn that her ex-boyfriend had also conditioned her not to like sex—added a Romance. 

We have here, therefore, a Tragedy, a Comedy, a Romance, and a Mystery, all in one volume, and the last thing Sayers would have wanted was for anyone to mistake this four-genre triumph for a Christian Novel as well. She thought of her detective stories as potboilers that subsidized the relatively smaller stack of religious writing she found time to do. Nevertheless she worked them out with all the joy of duty and pleasure that she described in The Mind of the Maker, and that she gives to Peter and Harriet—and it shows. If you like novels at all, you just about have to like Busman’s Honeymoon.

Book Review: Dead and Buried

Title: Dead and Buried

Author: E.G. Ellory

Date: 2025

Quote: "A convicted killer had been released after thirty-eight years behind bars."

And he's coming back to Fenburne--the place he knows, of course, and also the place where the older people know him. Where several people want him dead, and some would quite enjoy beating him to death. Where his role in some unsolved murders, and the whereabouts of the bodies, remain to be discovered from the secrets people thought were long dead and buried. 

This is volume three in the Fenburne murder mystery series. Readers are likely to know Sam Hyatt, who is officially retired (and who helped, early in his career, to imprison the serial murderer), and his buddy Jodie Walsh, who's spent two volumes first coming to terms with her attraction to Hannah and then making sure that Hannah is a lesbian too. Will they ever become a couple? What brought Hannah to Fenburne, anyway? Is she someone Walsh wants to get involved with? Will Hyatt's married daughter, who is about Jodie's age, be in danger? What about Hyatt's contemporaries, a few of whom are still on the police force? We're told that the serial murderer wants not to kill again, although he's planning to take advantage of some harmless retired people for money; will he have killed, be killed, or neither, when the first recent murder brings Hyatt and Walsh into action as detectives?

I find Ellory's type of mysteries more satisfactory than the grim and gory "hard-boiled" subgenre or the bland and often too easy "cozies," Because the atmosphere of this series is the kind of thing Arthur Conan Doyle, or Dorothy Sayers, or early Agatha Christie used to write, perhaps, what I like about the book also drew my attention to what I didn't like so much. Writers are often advised to "show not tell" when writing fiction. The proportion of showing to telling in this novel is high--and I kept thinking that Doyle or Sayers or Christie might have jotted down all that author's voice stuff in their outline-and-suchlike or even their first drafts, but they would have thought of a way to show the information via action or at least conversation when they sent their manuscripts to the publisher. Is it worth picking at this, when Ellory has a following of fans who don't mind it? Yes. I think Ellory is one of the self-published authors who are worth encouraging to develop their talent, to write as well as the masters of their genres.