While I love an old-fashioned cozy as much as anyone—the guest everyone loathes is found dead on the library floor, a fatal slash across a carotid artery, or perhaps a touch too much monkshood in the afternoon tea?—I especially enjoy mysteries located in the present, with settings and characters that are fresh and idiosyncratic. This Portland (OR) based series, Ground Rules, fits the bill perfectly. In the first volume, barista and total hipster Sage Caplin just opens her new coffee cart when, as luck would have it, a corpse is found dead by her wheels. In Double Shot Death, the coffee cart is at a sustainable music festival—how PDX is that?—when a body is found in the woods clutching one of her coffee mugs. In Flat White Fatality, Sage has a side gig modeling as a character for her boyfriend’s game development company, Grumpy Sasquatch Studio. But then, during a team-building event, the most annoying of the company’s coders is murdered, in Sage’s own roastery no less. When another employee is almost killed, Sage realizes she needs to step it up and find the murderer before she becomes suspect number one. Plenty of satire, lots of fascinating local detail, excellent friends and family, and an insider look at the world of special coffees.
Cozy
Having loved Nonna Maria and the Runaway Bride, I started Carcaterra’s second in the series with some trepidation. Would it hold up to the first? But I’m happy to report that the newest Nonna book provides all the pleasures of the earlier title—and then some. If you aren’t familiar with Nonna Maria, then make it a point to remedy that. A widowed grandmother, Nonna Maria, in an oh-so-subtle way, runs the island of Ischia, just 20 miles from Naples. Through her myriad connections, which include the carabinieri, members of organized crime, the clergy, and of course family, Nonna rights many wrongs—all while cooking the most delectable meals. In this installment, Nonna Maria’s goddaughter, who works as a maid, is accused of stealing a necklace while a woman, who was once a native, returns to the island, only to be murdered. Through Nonna’s investigations, we learn more about how the island, and its economy, is changing, while the conservative social mores that are such a part of island life live on. Cozy readers will love this book both for the indomitable character of Nonna Maria and the chance to travel to this paradise in the Bay of Naples.
We don’t normally review the 11th book in a series, because typically after a few titles the series needs no further introduction. But I grabbed this one from the (virtual) pile because 1. It’s set in Ireland, my former home; 2. It’s set in a bakery, my spiritual home; 3. Murder. The Ireland here is a thoroughly modern one, with the tale set around a baking-competition reality show. Famous cookbook author Aoife McBride is the one to beat, as the contestants vie to impress the judges with elaborate chocolate constructions, fancy layered creations, and to-die-for tea cakes, all to win twenty-thousand Euro and a boost to their baking-career ambitions. The producers throw in reality-show-required conflict, of course, but get more drama than they bargained for when a protester (“Sugar kills! Stop the show!”) outside the studio mysteriously drops dead. His is not the last face to fall in the flour, so to speak. Gardaí (police officers) Siobhán O’Sullivan and Aretta Dabiri and Siobhán’s new husband, Detective Sergeant Macdara Flannery, must solve the mystery while the cameras roll and the baking puns fly. This has more than the contestants’ groan-worthy puns, though, with O’Connor (No Strangers Here) giving readers a healthy balance of whodunit and bitchy competition, not to mention a cute relationship in still-in-the-honeymoon-phase Siobhán and Macdara. The closing recipe for Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Guinness Cake alone is worth the book price.
I love mysteries that feature the famous, from Walt Whitman to Dorothy Parker to Eleanor Roosevelt. But featuring a living celebrity—in this case, Bernie Sanders—is even more of a challenge, one that Shaffer succeeds at wonderfully. Gen Z intern Crash Robertson is our wisecracking intern and narrator, and after months of answering phones in the DC office—from constituents who don’t know how to text?—she gets to accompany the senator on a fall-recess trip to Vermont. By chance, they head to Eagle Creek, Crash’s hometown, and end up staying in her mother’s B&B. But what has the makings of a low-key visit with constituents, and plenty of apple griddlecakes, suddenly gets upended when Crash finds the body of the local banker floating in Lake Champlain. Crash’s running commentary on Bernie—who’s always ready to deliver a lecture on the declining honeybee population, or the cozy series he’s reading, set in a cannabis bakery in the Northwest—makes for a good part of the humor in the book. But when a second citizen goes missing, it’s time for our team to get down to work. The biggest suspect is a tech-obsessed one-percenter, think Elon Musk, who’s buying up acres of maple trees, driving out local farmers, and monopolizing maple syrup production in a move Bernie dubs “Big Maple.” Unmitigated fun for everyone, no matter where they might fall on the political spectrum. Shaffer is also the author of the Obama mysteries, Hope Never Dies and Hope Rides Again.
Bakers, cozy fans, and those who just love a fun, traditional mystery will want to abandon whatever they’re doing to read this novel to its very bloody end. A mashup of the TV series The Great British Bakeoff and the film Knives Out, the book stars Betsy Martin, “American’s Grandmother,” who’s sweet as pecan pie on the outside but tough as overmixed batter on the inside. Betsy created the show Bake Week, which is filmed at her Grafton, Vermont mansion—no fear of Spotted Dick in New England, TG— which also houses the six well-drawn contestants. For years, Betsy has ruled supreme over the show, but this season she’s being forced by the producers to take on another judge to—shudder—sex things up. What could go wrong? First, someone switches the sugar and salt, then a burner “accidentally” gets set on high. In the end, the whole show comes crashing down like some deflated meringue. But you’ll hear no spoilers from me—getting to the resolution on your own is too much fun.
This is one richly drawn mystery that does a great job of introducing us to a wonderful protagonist, a compelling group of characters, and a fascinating community. Poor 28-year-old pastry chef Chloe Barnes. Not only does her engagement end up in smoke, she gets panned in a review, then learns that her beloved grandmother is being treated for cancer. Time to leave Paris and head home to Azalea Bay, California. But what to do with herself? Fortunately, her Aunt Dawn has an idea: take her fancy, pastry-making skills and apply them to cannabis to create edibles so good they can hold their heads high in the best pâtisseries. Together they begin to plan for a store, Baked by Chloe, when there’s a murder—of a creepy guy who’s loathed by most of the female population of Azalea Bay—and Aunt Dawn ends up the number one suspect. Clearing her aunt’s name draws Chloe further into the past and the community as she creates a list of suspects. The book also goes deep into the weeds (see what I did there?) as Chloe learns the complexity of cooking with cannabis. And did I mention Jake? Cute, single, and lives next door. In this debut, author George has laid the foundation for a series that feels fresh, young, and full of surprises.
More than most other kinds of mysteries, successful cozies rely on a strong community that we would like to return to and a cast of characters we would like to know more about—and Blacke’s first in this new series succeeds delightfully at both. Juni Jessup is back in Cedar River, Texas after six years in the Pacific Northwest. Laid off from her tech job and a bit homesick, she’s returned mainly to join her two sisters as partners in Sip & Spin, a record store and cafe. But at their blow-out opening party, the body of a young woman is found in the supply closet. Very dead. That’s bad enough, but she’s also clutching Uncle Calvin’s card. Calvin is arrested, the sisters put their shop up for collateral, then Calvin skips bail and disappears. This leaves the sisters with a double-headed mystery: who killed the victim and where in the world did Calvin get to? This is your sort of poke-around mystery, in which Juni bikes around town asking questions, although the way gossip flies in Cedar River, all you really need to do is stand in one place long enough and listen. But Juni’s a great storyteller, the small-town Texas-ness of it all is lots of fun, and there’s not one but two possible romances. What else could you ask for?
A struggling photographer, twenty-something Liv Spyer is gifted with the powerful abilities to both observe and remember the world around her, gifts she needs if she ever wants to get out of her grandparent’s Greenwich Village brownstone, where she helps out in their key shop while carving out a tiny photography studio for herself in the basement. Finances are at an all time low—the holidays are approaching—when Liv crosses paths with Regina Montague, a prominent events photographer. After a little coercion, Liv convinces Regina to hire her and before you know it, she’s helping to photograph the social event of the season: the Holiday Debutante Ball. This is Liv’s big chance, until socially prominent Charlie Archibald interrupts the evening by being found dead in a pool of his blood, killed by a knife through an eyeball (yikes!). It doesn’t take much for Liv to decide to take on the case, and it’s a delight to follow her over Manhattan as she tries to piece together the puzzle, trusted camera in hand. While the plot can get super complicated, Brecher has done some great world building here—from Liv’s warm and loving Italian family to a possible boyfriend who may be an FBI agent—creating a world we’d be all too happy to return to again.
Irish drag queens may not get much sunlight, but they can still throw plenty of shade. Centered on a drag family that performs at the Dublin dive bar TRASH, the novel follows Fiona (Fi) McKinnery and her best friend and roommate Robyn/Mae B as Mae B makes her debut on the TRASH stage, lip-syncing to Julie London. She’s a huge success, until Eve, a nasty little queen, does a parody of Mae B’s act, ruining the night. When, later that evening, Eve is found dead, face down in an overflowing gutter, is anyone surprised? While everyone, from the gay community to the Gardaí (police), is willing to accept the death as an accident, Fi—who discovered the body on her way home from the club—is convinced it’s murder. When she speculates about Eve’s murder on her blog, she draws the ire of the queens who would rather forget about the whole thing and quickly turn their misogyny on Fi, dubbing her “Hagatha Christie.” Unfortunately, ensuing incidents only support Fi’s speculation. A charming novel about growing up and growing apart, the power of family—both your own and the one you create—and the danger of repression.
Maddy Montgomery is in need of a major reset. Spoiled rotten—Daddy’s an admiral—the recent Stanford grad and social-media-marketing maven loves her Laboutins and Jimmy Choos, as well as her doctor fiancé . Until he abandons her at the altar. And the ceremony was being livestreamed. Time for #FreshStarts #NoLookingBack. As luck would have it, Maddy has just inherited her great-aunt Octavia’s estate in New Bison, Michigan, a quaint town on Lake Michigan. The catch? She needs to live in the town, run her aunt’s bakery, and care for Babe, a 250-pound English mastiff—I defy any reader not to fall in love with him—for one year. Octavia was one smart, independent woman, and it seems like she also knew that Maddy needed a reset. Maddy’s willing—does she really have a choice?—and before you can say Hicksville, she’s making new friends, learning to crack open an egg, and even dating. Until the much-maligned Mayor gets killed, and Maddy’s fingerprints are found on the murder weapon. Help comes from the Baker Street Irregulars, a group of her great-aunt’s friends, who help her navigate the treacherous waters of Great Bison and present a different set of values, values that Maddy finds herself adopting. A great start to a series that is part poignant, part humorous, and part suspenseful while introducing a wonderful, new, African American heroine.