Irish step dance can kill in the first of what is hopefully many books in this series. Single mom to two young girls and the daughter of a police chief, Kate Buckley receives an urgent text from her sister, Colleen. She packs up and drives to Shamrock, Massachusetts to learn what is wrong. Upon their arrival, Colleen tells her it’s no big deal, but Kate knows otherwise. Stumbling upon the body of Colleen’s best friend, Deirdre, unveils family secrets and hidden motives from people Kate thought she knew. This cozy is perfect as Mathews creates a visual world of great characters and setting, ex-loves, pets, and Irish step dance. She also adds a dose of domestic suspense, but it doesn’t have too much of a psychological bent, keeping the book in cozy territory. With more surprises than usual, this is a step above much of this genre. Readers will be eager for book two; let’s hope it won’t take too long.
Women Sleuths
A classic “locked-mansion” mystery set on Michigan’s actual Mackinac Island, which in off-season has a population of a mere 500. And the only way to get on or off the island is by boat or chartered plane. Mimi—as curmudgeonly as she is humorous—is a well-established resident who’s invited to an opulent party cum auction by Jane Ireland, a super-rich neighbor (who’s dating her own son-in-law). Mimi decides to bring her granddaughter Addie, hoping to use the party as a way to mend their fractured relationship. Wouldn’t you know, a big storm blows in, effectively cutting off the partygoers from the rest of the population. Anxiety producing for sure, but when Jane is found dead—and she’s only the first victim—all hell breaks loose. Lots of the fun in this book is thanks to granddaughter Addie, a gamer who produced Murderscape, a hugely popular video game, while her fiancé claims to have done most of the work. See you in court, Mr. Wrong! Addie’s expertise helps solve many of the problems while moving the story along. Also, like a cloud hanging over the evening, is the blackmail threat that Jane sent to Mimi and that Mimi hasn’t shared with anyone. Does Jane’s murder invalidate the blackmail? Closed circles are hugely popular these days, but this title puts an unusual and playful spin on the proceedings.
It’s the marriage of the moguls, and a crew of celebrities and business titans have gathered at a super-posh resort in Cabos to celebrate the wedding of Radhika Singh and Raj Joshia. The week-long affair—which we see through the eyes of Shaylee “Shay” Kapoor—is just about to begin. But Shay is far from belonging to a wealthy Indian-American family; something she is reminded of regularly. She’s the “plus one,” the girlfriend of Raj’s best friend, preppy Caleb Prescott III. But on the morning that the wedding is set to begin, Daniela, the wedding coordinator, finds the bride and groom dead, gunshots to the head, drug-lord style. With knowledge that there is a killer in their midst, chaos takes over the resort and the guests start swarming to leave. But Shay stays on, as the reader begins to realize that Shay isn’t what we thought. In fact, many of the inner circle, including Caleb, have alternate personas. Shay’s still an outsider, but that’s just what might be necessary to uncover the truth. For those who enjoy closed circles, family drama, and sinister resorts.
It’s hard to imagine, but one of the very best series has gotten even better. While the first three books were set around 2016, and featured Rozie Oshodi, Assistant Private Secretary (APS) to the Queen, here we jump back to 1957. The Queen is a young woman, still new to her role as monarch; the U.K. continues to recover from the Second World War; and a new APS emerges out of the typing pool: Joan McGraw, whose wartime work included decoding. This case is centered around a notorious murder: a young woman, a high-class escort, is found dead in a house in Chelsea that belongs to an elite men’s club. She is wearing only silk underwear and a diamond tiara. Nearby lies the body of an older man, garrotted. The double-murder grips Londoners, including the Queen, who has her own reasons for fearing that someone close to her could be implicated. Elizabeth doesn’t trust the old courtiers who surround her and turns to Joan for help in solving the case of the “tart in the tiara.” Besides a bang-up plot, this novel reaches brilliantly into Elizabeth’s life, from real-life state visits to Paris and North America, trying to bolster the U.K.’s relationships, to her tumultuous relationship with Philip, to her fear of a scandal that could take down the monarchy. This is deep, rich writing that should attract the millions who enjoyed The Crown, and want yet more.
Kate Myles has a lot going on. The former LAPD cop, her career ruined by a pain-pill addiction brought on by a car crash, has lost her marriage and custody of her beloved daughter, Amelia. She’s now working as a private detective, rolling her eyes at old-time movie assumptions. It’s far from glamorous, and she’s far from ready for more drama in her life. But no matter: while living at her mom’s, she discovers paperwork that leads her on a quest to find biological relatives, a plot line that includes an intriguing aspect of the use of DNA in crime cases, and that also leads her to Idlewood, a town with a sad history. Hired to clear the name of a drug addict who’s accused of killing his sister in an arson attack, she also investigates a local cold case, of a young woman who was killed years before. How all these things are related is the story of every small town, with Kenna perfectly portraying the intertwined regrets, missed opportunities, and love that make each place unique. Better again is her portrayal of Myles, a gutsy, lovable character who pushes herself to the brink and more for those she loves. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
Settle in for a truly wonderful read as Geneva Bay, Wisconsin prepares for the holidays. For pizza chef Delilah
O’Leary, and her crew, a glitzy Chrismukkah catering gig in one of the local mansions gets things started, but when Delilah’s family shows up out of the blue with their own set of hostilities and anxiety-producing behavior in tow, things take a decidedly unpleasant turn. And any hopes that the next day’s annual snow-sculpting championship will cheer everyone up—Delilah attends with now-boyfriend Detective Calvin Capone (yes, that Capone family)—are dashed when a corpse is found frozen in the ice. Quigley employs a large cast of characters, from the formerly incarcerated and now dishwasher “Rabbit” (where did he disappear to?) to Sonya, Delilah’s bestie who helps Delilah sort out her relationship with Capone, to Delilah’s grumpy sister Shea, who most definitely has something up her sleeve. The miracle is that we can follow each character with ease, their identities are so well drawn, while caring about each of them. Add to this a bucketful of red herrings sure to send readers in a dozen different directions. Fire up the pizza, cue Mariah Carey, and make sure the cat is comfortable: cozies just don’t get better than this.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you. This book will have you quickly rearranging your life so that you can get to the all-so-worth-it ending ASAP and without any distractions. A classic closed-circle mystery, it features nearly 300 women and practically no men on a literary cruise to nowhere called the “Get Lit Cruise.” The cruise has been organized by best-selling author and writing guru Payton Garrett, who’s brought along some friends to lead the seminars. These include an MFA frenemy known as the ghostwriter who, under the pseudonym Belle Currer, is a well-known mystery writer (we first met her in Donovan’s The Busy Body). Belle is hands-down one of the most wickedly droll narrators in mysteries these days—hip, full of fun, yet still capable of being terrified. And terror there is, when murder visits the high seas, leaving corpses in its wake. It’s easy to compare this novel to those from Agatha Christie and Anthony Horowitz, but Loose Lips is very much its own thing, and Belle very much her own unique character. I can’t wait to feature this book in next spring’s book discussions.
A wonderful foray into turn-of-the-19th-century Chicago, with women entering the workforce, immigrants transforming the city, and the LGBTQ community tucked away in hidden nightclubs. Harriet Morrow, all of 21 years old, is the first woman hired as a detective by the prestigious Prescott Agency—a decision that pleases almost no one, neither the male detectives nor the female typing pool. But working as a detective has always been a dream of Harriet’s, and now, with her parents dead and her younger brother to support, it’s a necessity. So too are the pants she wears, giving her the freedom to comfortably bike around Chicago while also exploring her identity as a lesbian. Within an hour on the job, Harriet gets her first assignment: to find a maid who has disappeared from one of the posh mansions on Prairie Avenue—and Harriet has only a few days to locate her. It’s magical how Osler transports us around Chicago, from the the large Polish community to queer social spaces to the ritzy homes of Chicago’s elite. Harriet is a wonderful lead character, and Osler brilliantly combines his protagonist’s growth into adulthood and Chicago’s emergence as one of the nation’s largest cities. This book is asking to be the first in a series
It’s wonderful to be back in the graves of academe, especially when we are in the expert hands of Victoria Gilbert, series serialist (meaning she writes several series!). This book launches a new series, and it’s just a wee bit meta. Jen Dalton, mystery author and English professor, gets tangled in a real crime—the murder of a colleague—while, of course, writing her own mystery. If she doesn’t manage to solve the crime happening in real life, then one of her students, a talented writer in her own right, will likely be proclaimed guilty. Lucky for Jen, she has a gang ready to help her out—who needs the police?—from a cafeteria manager to a librarian to Zachary Flynn, the incredibly annoying campus shrink whom Jen can’t help but find attractive (it’s right out of Smart Women, Foolish Choices. Wonderfully paced, brimming with great characterization, and with a terrific lead in Jen, this novel will appeal to many mystery readers, from cozy lovers to those just seeking a good, traditional read.
Comics-creator Segura is back with another mystery that takes a penetrating look at the comics industry, particularly its treatment of women creators. In Secret Identity, the 1975-set prequel to Alter Ego, Carmen Valdez was a struggling artist at Triumph, a small comics publisher. She was promised by a male coworker that if she wrote a new female character, the Legendary Lynx, he would pretend he was the lone creator and reveal her work once the character was successful. You can imagine how that went, only add some murder to the shadiness to get the full picture. This book is set in the present and finds another Cuban American woman artist, Annie Bustamante, going through career struggles. She’s had some success, and she longs to bring back the Lynx, even drawing the character in her spare time. When she’s approached by the son of Triumph’s previous owner to bring the character to the big screen and more, she’s nervous that he’s clueless and she has a hard time getting real details on the project. But when, like Carmen before her, she encounters far more sinister elements of the business, including messages from someone only calling themselves Apparition, things turn very scary. There’s no need to read the previous book to enjoy this one, but readers should grab both for an immersive look at this industry, the muddled ego/fear feelings it engenders, and a great set of murder mysteries.