Haunted Hibiscus

Haunted Hibiscus is the 22nd Indigo Tea Shop mystery by Laura Childs.  I have loved this series since it began but in the last several years the books have been hit or miss for me.  This particular installment of the series is a miss.  I think that because the author writes three different series concurrently and pushes out 3 books per year, she is getting lazy with her writing.  I will explain more fully below but here is the publisher's summary of the novel:

"It is the week before Halloween and Theodosia Browning, proprietor of the Indigo Tea Shop, and her tea sommelier, Drayton, are ghosting through the dusk of a cool Charleston evening on their way to the old Bouchard Mansion.  Known as the Grey Ghost, this dilapidated place was recently bequeathed to the Heritage Society, and tonight heralds the grand opening of their literary and historical themed haunted house.

Though Timothy Neville, the Patriarch of the Heritage Society, is not thrilled with the fund-raising idea, it is the perfect venue for his grandniece, Willow French, to sign copies of her new book, Carolina Crimes & Capers.  But amidst a parade of characters dressed as Edgar Allen Poe, Lady Macbeth, and the Headless Horseman, Willow's body is suddenly tossed from the third-floor tower room and left to dangle at the end of a rope.  Police come screaming in and Theodosia's boyfriend, Detective Pete Riley, is sent to Willow's apartment to investigate.  But minutes later, he is shot and wounded by a shadowy intruder.

Timothy begs Theodosia to investigate, and shaken by Riley's assault, she readily agrees.  Now, she questions members of the Heritage Society and a man who claims the mansion is rightfully his, as well as Willow's book publisher and fiance, all while hosting a Sherlock Holmes tea and catering several others." 

Perhaps I have become tired of this series. The exact same things happen in the exact same places in the novels. You always know what Timothy Neville's reactions will be. The Heritage Society is always about to go under.  There is no variety to the series.  While all of the prior books in the series could have been standalone novels, this one isn't.  There is no background information on the characters.  Also, Theodosia seemed quite angry throughout the story.  She is normally a sweet, polite southerner.  A few of the phrases in Haunted Hibiscus that annoyed me in include:

• the front door da-dinged
• I only have time for drive-by kisses and hugs
• He's as wide as a soccer mom's van
• Holy cats, what a mess
• Floradora Florist
• Being young and dipped in folly, I fell in love with melancholy

I think that I will check out from this series.  I doesn't do anything for me.  I am rating it 2 out of 5 stars because the plot premise was good.  It just wasn't executed well.

Killer Deadline

Lauren Carr writes stand alone cozy mysteries. I have to wonder, though, if Killer Deadline is the beginning of a series as the front cover references "a Nikki Bryant cozy mystery."  The characters are perfect for one and the main character has a job as a TV news station owner, which will give her a good reason for being an amateur sleuth.  Add in Nikki's photogenic "ugly" dog and you have the ingredients for a perfect series.

This awesome story begins with Nikki's return to Pine Grove, Pennsylvania after working as a journalist for several years in Las Vegas and Washington, D.C. With her mother's decision to retire from the news business, Nikki comes home to take over the station that her father began over thirty years ago.  Soon after her arrival Nikki finds the dead body of her news anchor Ashleigh Addison, who is also her childhood rival.  The night before her death, Ashleigh was at a party to welcome Nikki where Ashleigh stated that she would be airing live an explosive news story the next day.  The question for the police and for Nikki  is whether her news story is connected to the murder of Nikki's father in his office at the station.  

Killer Deadline was an enjoyable read. It is a modern cozy with accomplished, power hungry women. Ashleigh is the traditional female character who cares more about appearances than substance. The fact that she is the novel's victim is telling for me.  I would expect the aggressive female character to be the victim in a cozy.  I like to see this connection to the modern world. 

The plot was a straightforward murder mystery.  It moved fast with the murder of Nikki's father taking precedence over Ashleigh's murder. I love it when the mystery formula is followed faithfully. Of course, you can never go wrong by using a dog as a character. 

5 out of 5 stars!

Followed

 

I loved Helen Macie Osterman's Emma Winberry mystery series so when I found her book Followed, I knew that I had to read it. It is a cozy mystery and is a stand alone novel.

Meg Lewis feels that she is being followed. Soon she sees a blue car every night driving past her grandmother's home where Meg lives with her daughter and grandmother. Meg recognizes the driver as a man who visited a patient at the hospital where she works at as a nurse.  Taking precautions, Meg doesn't let her daughter Becky out of her sight. Meg's grandmother, Lillian Sparks, decides to get a dog and install an electric fence for added security. However, the first time they become lax in watching Becky, Becky and her dog disappear from the back yard. 

While the book follows a mystery formula, there is also some romance. Meg has begun dating a young doctor who she met at work. Curt Williams is the perfect boyfriend who also loves Meg's daughter. Grandmother Lil also has a boyfriend. Together this fivesome would make a great family, that is, if they ever get hitched. 

Followed is a traditional cozy with no sex or violence. I assumed all would end well in the plot since this is a cozy, but there was still a mystery concerning how it would happen. I devoured the book in one sitting. It was the perfect respite for a snowy afternoon.

5 out of 5 stars.

Plaid and Plagiarism

Plaid and Plagiarism was a disconnect for me.  There were too many descriptive phrases per page instead of action. For instance, Obsessive Outlanders and Born Again Braveheart were one of 10 descriptions on a page.  "Janet and Christine made comforting bookends for the young women in between them." "You didn'task Rab why he rabbited off the harborwall." " I didn't want to ask about his Nessie boxers." "Ooh, is that one of those fancy instant-hot, instant-cold, instant ooh-la-la taps?"  "Let's put the unsavory bits to bed." What the heck do these descriptions mean? I guess the book was written for a UK audience as the author has used many words that only the British use.

Also, the run-up to the murder itself made no sense.  Our two main characters were searching someone's house because it had been trashed. The body was found elsewhere, in a shed, and I did not see the connection between spending 20 pages on searching the house and one sentence on the shed. In addition, when they were peeking into the windows of the house?  Why did they call the police for an emergency when they saw a person move inside the house?  Perhaps the person lived there. Afterward they entered the house to see if more than the kitchen was trashed. Why? This was not connected to the body in the shed and there didn't seem to be any reason why they could enter this house.

What is the book supposed to be about? The publisher's blurb refers to two friends opening a bookshop and they are going to be amateur sleuths solving a murder. Nothing else is written about the plot in the blurb and I can only assume that even the publisher doesn't see any plot action. 

It seems to me that this book is all setting descriptions and no plot. Perhaps the author was trying to set some groundwork for a new cozy mystery series. However, the book was too dull for me to even consider reading any future books in the series.

Last Wool and Testament

This is the first cozy that I have read in a few years.  I got tired of their simplistic plots and Stepford characters. Because this book is about weavers and I am a weaver I decided it was a good time to try a cozy again.  I was not disappointed. Last Wool and Testament was fantastic.

The story opens with amateur sleuth Kath Rutledge traveling from Illinois to Blue Plum, Tennessee to attend her grandmother Ivy McClellan's burial.  Kath has planned to stay for 2 weeks so that she can decide what to do with her grandmother's home and yarn shop business both of which she inherited. When she arrives at her grandmother's home for her stay, Kath finds that the lock has been changed. She is quickly handed a piece of paper stating that her grandmother and now Kath owes back rent for the property.  She is also told that the home and The Weaver's Cat, a yarn shop, are now owned by someone else.  Kath meets with the TGIF - thank goodness it's fiber - group for advice.  The TGIF members meet regularly at the shop to work on fiber projects.  Kath also meets with her grandmother's attorney, Homer Wood, for assistance with the estate.  Wood puts her off several times before he finally tells her that her grandmother was a suspect in a murder.  The murdered man's relative now claims to own both of her grandmother's properties.  Kath works with her new friends from TGIF to determine what is going on in Blue Plum.

I loved this book.  However, in the beginning I had a difficult time determining what character was speaking.  It finally dawned on me that a ghost is one of the characters.  All I had to do was look at the cover of the book and see that this new cozy series is a haunted yarn shop mystery.  When I finally figured out which characters were speaking, the reading was smooth sailing.  The ghost character began to bother me after a few chapters though.  I just am not in to ghost stories.  I wonder if the identity of this ghost will be a recurring character or if there will be different ghosts in subsequent books in the series.

Solving the mystery of who murdered the dead man was thrilling.  Two more murders occurred later in the plot and it was interesting to watch Kath try to connect them to the first murder.  There were plenty of red herrings and twists in the plot to satisfy me.  The writing was crisp making Last Wool a great introduction to a new cozy series.

4 out of 5 stars.

Lavender Blue Murder

Lavender Blue Murder is the 21st Indigo Teashop Mystery by Laura Childs.  I have read every book in this series and while several of the past books in the series did not inspire me, this installment of the series was superb. In fact, it was better than anything I have read by her in about the past ten years.

Summary: 

Tea maven Theodosia Browning and her tea sommelier Drayton Conneley are guests at a bird hunt styled in the precise manner of an English shooting party which means elevenses, gun loaders, the drawing of pegs, fine looking bird dogs, and shooting costumes of tweed, herringbone and suede. As gunshots explode like a riff of Black Cat firecrackers, another shot sounds too close for comfort to Theodosia and Drayton. Intrigued but worried, Theodosia wanders into the neighbor's lavender field where she discovers their host, Reginald Doyle, bleeding to death.  His wife Meredith is beside herself with grief and begs Theodosia and Drayton to spend the night. Theodosia wakes up at 2 am to find smoke in her room and the house on fire. As the fire department screams in and the investigating sheriff returns, Meredith again pleads with Theodosia for help.

Review:

I devoured the book. The writing was tight and may have been her best novel to date.  I don't remember Childs ever writing an opening without excessive amounts of background information on her characters or the City of Charleston.  Lavender Blue Murder was more like a straight mystery novel than a cozy. There was more graphic descriptions of the murder scene than usual and since the murder occurred in a different county, the law enforcement characters were new.  I liked this anomaly as the Bert Tidwell detective character has been overdone and he has never grown as a character throughout the 21 books. Another character, Timothy Neville, is shown to be hanging out with his gay lover. Neville has not been identified as gay before.  Another change was having the genteel Theodosia and Drayton participate in a hunting party. While at first this seemed out of character, I liked the change of scenery for them. In prior murder scenes they are always standersby to the murder. Here, they are actively participating in the exercise that caused the murder.

I was pleasantly surprised by Lavender Blue Murder. 5 out of 5 stars.

Sugar and Spite

After reading two steamy historical fiction novels this month I thought it best to switch to a cozy mystery. Sugar and Spite is the 22nd installment of the Ettie Smith Amish Cozy Mystery series by Samantha Price. This is the first book in the series that I have read.

Amish sisters Ettie Smith and Elsa-Mae Lutz decide to bring a cake as a peace offering to Brunhilde Hoffman whom Elsa-Mae believes is angry with her. Upon entering Brunhilde's candy shop they find her dead body. The cake is accidentally dropped on the floor. Thinking that the cake contaminates the crime scene, they clean it up. Since the Amish people don't like speaking to outsiders, the police ask the sisters to talk to their Amish neighbors about what they know about Brunhilde. Ettie and Elsa-Mae then begin to interview their suspects and gather evidence.

This book is a traditional cozy with no violence or sex described within its pages. The main characters are an amusing set of sisters whose back and forth commentary on everything imaginable will make the reader chuckle. There is no sibling rivalry here. Etta and Elsa-Mae get along well, sweetly nudging each other when their habits annoy the other sister. The plot was more complicated than I expected for a cozy. The sisters find plenty of people who had bad experiences dealing with Brunhilde, both personally and in business, and these issues needed to be fleshed out by them in order to solve the crime.

Sugar and Spite is a relaxing read. I rate it 4 out of 5 stars.

Brewed Awakening

Brewed Awakening is Coffeehouse Mystery number 18. This installment of the series opens with a marriage proposal to main character and amateur sleuth Clair Cosi from her long time boyfriend Mike Quinn. Clare's life suddenly takes a turn for the worse when 2 months later she finds herself waking up on a park bench in someone else's clothes. She is not sure why she is in New York City when she lives in New Jersey but decides to walk to the coffee shop her former mother-in-law owns, the Village Blend. When she arrives there Clare is surprised to see her daughter Joy looking 11 years older and that coffeehouse staff whom she does not know seem to know her. Clare has amnesia!

A few pages later we find out that Clare witnessed a crime that she cannot remember. She had been missing for a week and when she woke up in the park her memory did not register anything that happened in her life in the past 11 years. Society wife and hotel owner Annette Brewster went missing alongside Clare when an armed and masked man forced them in a car but Bewster has never been found. Clare is the key to locating her, if she can remember.

I thought it was creative for the authors to use amnesia as a way to slowly reveal the clues to the crime. It certainly breaks up their usual way of telling a story and keeps it fresh for loyal readers of the series. Her compatriots at The Blend also commit a crime, removing her from a hospital against her crazy psychiatrist's knowledge, and are themselves laying low from the police. The psychiatrist is planning to take Clare to a private hospital in the north part of the state for treatment that he refuses to describe to her family for up to a year. We have the tension of two crimes here which made the plot more interesting.

Brewed Awakening may be the best book in the series to date. 5 out of 5 stars!

Angels' Share

Angels' Share is the 10th installment of this wine country cozy mystery series featuring amateur sleuth  Lucie Montgomery. Lucie has a mobility impairment and owns a vineyard in Loudoun County, Virginia.

The summary from the inside cover blurb says "When Lucie Montgomery attends a Thanksgiving weekend party for friends and neighbors at Hawthorne Castle, an honest-to-goodness castle owned by the Avery family, the last great newspaper dynasty in America and owner of the Washington Tribune, she doesn't expect the festive occasion to end in death.

During the party, Prescott Avery, the ninety-five year old family patriarch, invites Lucie to his fabulous wine cellar, where he offers to pay any price for a cache of two hundred year old Madiera that her great-uncle, a Prohibition bootlegger, discovered hidden in the U. S. Capitol in the 1920s. Lucie knows nothing about the valuable wine, believing her late father, a notorious gambler and spendthrift, probably sold or drank it. By the end of the party, Lucie and her fiance, winemaker Quinn Santori, discover Prescott's body lying in his wine cellar. Is one of the guests a murderer?

As Lucie searches for the lost Madeira, she learns about Prescott's affiliation with the Freemasons. More investigation hints at a mysterious vault supposedly containing documents hidden by the Founding Fathers and a possible tie to William Shakespeare. If Lucie finds the long-lost documents, the explosive revelations could change history. But will she uncover a three-hundred-year-old secret before a determined killer finds her?"

Angels' Share is the best written book in this series. Author Ellen Crosby has become a fantastic writer over the years since she began writing this series. All of the books are good. However, the writing is awkward in some sections of the earlier books. Crosby has finally hit her stride with this new novel.

I was somewhat surprised that most of the pursuit of mystery concerned the secondary plot around lost treasure. The solving of the crime, Prescott Avery's murder, took second place. The lost treasure hunt was exciting though and kept me reading but I wondered why, or rather how, it fit in with the murder. The choice for the title was interesting. The angel's share is the amount of wine that evaporates from a wine barrel between the time it is bottled and the time it is opened.

I learned quite a bit about Madiera wine from the book. As with all of the books in the series, a particular wine is featured and the reader becomes knowledgeable about that wine. I could use a glass of it right now since I just finished my Thanksgiving dinner. With the story beginning on Thanksgiving weekend it has a holiday feel to it. I picked the best book to read this week!

5 out of 5 stars!

Bad to the Bone

Bad to the Bone is the third book in a cozy mystery series called the Barkery and Biscuits Mysteries. It is the first one in the series that I have read.

The back cover blurb summarizes the book as follows:  "Veterinary technician Carrie Kennersley, owner of the Barkery and Biscuits Bakery for dogs, is reluctant to sell her recipes to pet food manufacturer VimPets. Jack Loroci, a VimPets representative, assures Carrie that it would be a great opportunity to grow her business. His promising new relationship with Carrie's friend Billi Matlock doesn't hurt his cause. But the budding romance takes a bad turn when Wanda Addler, another VimPets employee, sets her sights on Jack. After threatening to ruin Jack's career if he doesn't give her what she wants, Wanda is found dead. Jack and Billi are put at the top of the suspect list, and Carrie is doggone determined to rescue them from a life behind bars."

My initial impression was that something was lacking in the story but I wasn't sure what it was. The murder occurred early in the story.  The main character/amateur sleuth then had conversations with several people over the space of 100 pages concerning whether she should investigate the murder. I thought that was odd since this is a cozy mystery and the reader knows that the amateur sleuth is going to investigate. It was a waste of 100 pages. Once the investigation began, the amateur sleuth only performed witness interviews in her investigation. Again, I thought that was odd. Usually there is back story written in to the plot as well as research being done by one of the characters and an "aha" moment on the part of the main character. I finally realized that there was only dialogue in this novel. There was no other writing technique used to break up all that dialogue.

In addition, there were no clues pointing to who the killer was interspersed throughout the novel. There were no red herrings used either. The relationships between Carrie and her employees were not written into the story as you would normally see in this type of a cozy so the Barkery and Biscuit Shop connection to the plot was not fully formed. I thought that the final resolution to the murder wasn't plausible. Perhaps it's because of the aforementioned issues but in any event it was not a satisfying resolution of the murder.

The plot summary was interesting but there were too many shortcomings in Bad to the Bone. 2 out of 5 stars.

The Time for Murder is Meow

This cozy mystery is the first installment of a new series featuring former actress and pet shop heiress Crishell McMillan. "Shell" inherited her shop, the Purr N Bark Pet Shop, from her grandmother.

The back cover blurb summarizes the plot as follows: "Crishell 'Shell' McMillan sees the cancellation of her TV series as a blessing in disguise. The former actress can now take over her late aunt's pet shop, the Purr N Bark, and do something she truly loves. While getting the shop ready for reopening, Shell is asked to loan her aunt's Cary Grant posters to the local museum for an exhibit. She finds the prospect exciting-until a Museum board member, who had a long-standing feud with Shell's aunt, votes against it. When she discovers the board member dead in the museum, Shell becomes suspect number one. Can she, her Siamese cat Kahlua, and her new sidekick-her aunt's Persian named Purrday-find the real culprit? If not, her latest career will go up in kitty litter."

The murder to be solved did not occur until page 100 of this 296 page book. For me, that is way too late for a whodunnit to be successful. Also, when a series is about a shop, the shop should be featured in the story. The Purr N Bark Pet Shop was rarely mentioned as it had not opened for business yet. The reader doesn't know what type of series this is going to be when the supposed setting for it has not been introduced. We don't  know the decor, the characters who work there, and how the business is woven into the sleuthing. I think this is a fatal flaw for the series but we shall wait and see what book number two turns out to be when it is published in 2020.  As for the two cats mentioned in the back cover blurb, they were only involved to greet the protagonist when she came home in the evening. I don't know why they were even mentioned in the blurb.

The main problem that I had with this book was that the conflict between the main character and her adversaries was based on an unrealistic premise.  I can forget the other problems with the book and see this as a stand alone novel. What I cannot do is get interested in a plot that is based on a person being upset that a charity will not allow her to exhibit her vintage movie posters on their premises. Any one who takes offense over something like that has psychologist issues. Unless the author wants to take us on a murderous rage, this plot falls flat.

2 out of 5 stars.

The Persian Always Meows Twice

This is the first book in a new cozy mystery series by Eileen Watkins. I reviewed the 2nd book in the series a few weeks ago and liked it so much I ran out to the library to find the first one. In this series the cat is not the sleuth. Cat groomer Cassie McGlone, owner of Cassie's Comfy Cats is the sleuth.

The story opens with Cassie visiting a client in his home where he has a full grooming station for his Persian cat named Harpo. George DeLeuw is one of her best clients. He is Chadwick's wealthiest resident and pays her well, wanting extra attention for his cat whose long hair gets matted without the attention. When Cassie arrives for one of her regular visits she hears a scream and finds the maid Anita trembling. Anita leads her to DeLeuw's body, lying dead on the floor.  Cassie calls the police and Detective Angela Bonelli arrived on the scene. While several officers processed the scene of the crime Bonelli interviewed them both along with the landscaper Louis who had come inside when he heard Anita scream. Anita and Louis both said they thought DeLeuw was killed by an art thief because his home was filled with expensive artworks. Cassie was grilled on why she moved to Chadwick four months earlier.

Worried about Harpo's care, when Cassie attends the funeral she asks questions of all of the family and business associates of the deceased about whether the cat is named in the will and who is getting possession of the cat. She wants to take care of Harpo herself but all the questions only got her the attention of Detective Bonelli who now thinks that she is a suspect. Every person Cassie spoke to was considered a suspect by the police.

His ex-wife Marjorie sued him for possession of Harpo's brother and then had him put to sleep for spitting up a hairball. Marjorie hates cats and this was just another way to be cruel to him during the divorce. His sister Danielle wanted to get the cat from Cassie and return to the west coast even though she too did not like cats. Danielle had asked her brother for a business loan but he told her no.  Cassie thought that whoever got the cat would get some money in the will for Harpo's care. Then there were the business associates at DeLeuw's old Wall Street firm Redmond & Fowler, where DeLeuw had tried to sell an encryption program created by the son of Cassie's handyman, Dion Janos, but passed it off as his own and used it to hide documentation of the firm's corruption.

De Leuw's attorney agrees, however, that Cassie should board Harpo at her shop until the will is read. Before that happens, there are two attempted break-ins at Cassie's Comfy Cats, an arson at the shop, and an attempted kidnapping of Harpo and attempted murder of  Cassie herself at the shop when the crime is solved. Many twists and turns happen in between these main events.

This was a fabulous read but there were two odd things that stood out in my mind. The author referred to Harpo as a blond Persian. There is no such thing as a blond Persian cat. There are goldens and there are also silvers. How do I know? I helped a breeder of golden and silver Persians when I was a teenager through my thirties and attended cat shows throughout the Midwest with her. To me, a "blond" cat would be more golden in color but the cat on the cover of the book is a silver. The next item that irked me was how Cassie referred to her shop assistant Sarah as "moving much faster that she should be able to for her sixty years." I am sixty! Is the author saying that I should not be able to move? There is a little ageism here.

Aside from these two issues this book was fast paced with an intricate plot. I lost count of how many suspects there were, maybe 8, that had to be worked through with red herring after red herring. The writing was tight as the crime, occurring in the first chapter, was resolved in this little book's 261 pages. Several regular characters were also introduced for future novels so a lot happened here.

5 out of 5 stars.

A Plain Vanilla Murder

A Plain Vanilla Murder is Susan Wittig Albert's 27th China Bayles Mystery. Each novel features a different herb and this installment of the series features an orchid plant that grows vanilla pods. If you like to bake then you know that the price of vanilla extract and vanilla beans has skyrocketed. The author has chosen a timely subject to write about in this novel.

The summary from the inside cover blurb:

"China and Ruby Wilcox are presenting their annual Not Just Plain Vanilla Workshop, always a huge hit with customers at Thyme & Seasons Herb Shop. But someone involved with the workshop is driven by a deadly motive, and China soon finds herself teaming up with the very pregnant Pecan Springs police chief Sheila Dawson to solve a vanilla-flavored murder. But the lethal roots of this mystery reach back into the dark tropical jungles of Mexico, where the vanilla vine was first cultivated. At stake: a lucrative plant patent, an orchid that is extinct in the wild, and the life of an innocent girl."

This cozy mystery at times felt like a political mystery. The reader learns how vanilla plants are smuggled into the U.S. and sold at horticulture shows throughout the country. The murder victim had been developing a disease resistant vanilla plant. His secrecy over this activity resulted in him making many enemies at his college. Some of the prime suspects in his murder included jealous colleagues, orchid smugglers, and a disgruntled grad student that the victim was working with.

There were a few anomalies in the book. Police Chief Sheila Dawson has been pregnant in more than one installment of the series. In this book she is 8 months pregnant. How long can she be pregnant? Or should the question be what is the time lapse between murders in Pecan Springs that are written about in separate novels? In order to be able to investigate the next crime in the series Dawson has to have given birth and be back on the job. Also, two new secondary characters were introduced who had nothing to do with the plot. Ruby's daughter Amy Wilcox and her partner Kate Rodriguez were introduced and they are having a baby together with the assistance of a brother-in-law and a test tube. That was all that was said about them.

I thought that the investigation into the murder itself was intricately plotted. The pace was fast. There were as many red herrings and twists and turns as you might find in a standard political mystery but the writing was still done in Ms. Albert's folksy manner.

The author always has recipes at the back of her books. However, in this book the recipes at the back are more basic such as how to make your own vanilla extract, vanilla sugar, vanilla salt, vanilla paste, vanilla powder, vanilla syrup, vanilla butter, vanilla whipped cream, and vanilla vinegar. I am a baker so I had to write down these recipes for my own use. Recipes for dishes that the characters made in the novel are interspersed throughout the novel.

A Plain Vanilla Murder was truly a salute to vanilla. 5 out of 5 stars!

Broken Bone China

Broken Bone China is the 20th Indigo Tea Shop Mystery by Laura Childs. The series takes place in Charleston, North Carolina with three main characters. Theodosia Browning is the amateur sleuth of the series. She owns the Indigo Tea Shop. Drayton Conneley is Theo's tea master and together they go on fact finding sleuthing trips. Haley is the third main character. She is the cook and pastry chef for the Indigo Tea Shop. She mainly provides emotional support for the other two because she is busy running the tea shop while Theo and Drayton are running around town.  However, every once in a while Haley has helpful information that will solve the crime.

This story begins with the crime. Theo and Drayton are riding in a hot air balloon with the Top Flight Balloon Club when they spot a drone hovering over each balloon before it rams itself into one balloon, falling to the ground onto Theo's table and crushing her pink bone china cups. The Indigo Tea Shop had been hired to serve tea and pastries to the guests of the Balloon Club. However, after all four people inside the balloon were killed, the police were called and the party was over.

The next day a fellow Charleston business owner, antiques dealer Tod Slawson, arrives at the Indigo Tea Shop to talk about the balloon disaster. He called it a murder as victim Don Kingsley was selling a remnant of the American Revolutionary War, the "don't tread on me" flag. Two of the bidders for the flag were in the balloon with him and also killed. Slawson was bidding on the flag himself but the flag is now missing from Kingsley's home. The following day another Charleston business owner arrived. Angie Congdon asked Theodosia for her help in clearing her fiance's name in this crime. Harold Affolter worked for Kingsley's company and had been a whistleblower at the company. Harold also owned a drone.

Theo begins her investigation by visiting Kingsley's widow, who is happy as can be, and then Kingsley's assistant at the office, who cannot explain why he spent so much time at Kingsley's second home after the murder. However, this was just the beginning of an intricately plotted mystery. Every event and person mentioned was present for a purpose. This is vastly different from the past few books in the series where I think the author got sloppy in her writing due to the need to publish three books a year for three different series that she is currently writing. I am delighted that this series is back on track as I have loved it from the first book.

Even the special occasion tea events at the tea shop advanced the plot. This book had a Nancy Drew Tea and a Beaux Art Tea wherein the reader learned about the Nancy Drew books and beaux art (fine art) as well as the actual teas that were paired with the foods that were served at the events. I always enjoy reading about the tea. Drayton, as tea master for the shop, created teas for these events. This part of the book is fiction as there is no such thing as a tea master but Drayton's job seems believable in the world of cozies.

The setting of historic downtown Charleston is prominent in each book in the series and I feel that it should be considered a character too.  It's history, architecture and wealthy eccentric residents provide an interesting backdrop to these stories. Recipes for sweets made by Haley are given at the end of the book as are some suggestions by the author on how to host several special occasion tea events yourself.

Laura Childs made a great comeback with Broken Bone China. 5 out of 5 stars!!!

The Bengal Identity

The Bengal Identity is the 2nd book in the Cat Groomer Series by Eileen Watkins. It is the first book that I have read in the series though. The main character is Cassie McGlone who owns a cat grooming shop in Chadwick, New Jersey called Cassie's Comfy Cats.  Cassie has a degree in psychology and has had training in animal behavior and grooming. This cat mystery series is different from all others. While a different cat breed will be profiled in each book, the cats do not have special powers that help solve crimes. Cassie is the amateur sleuth of the series, not the cats.

The story opens with a new customer named Rudy Pierson coming in to Cassie's Comfy Cats asking to board his cat for a few days because his house just burned to the ground. Cassie was suspicious about his story because she had not heard about a fire on the news, his behavior was frantic and he said his cat only ate natural food and liked walking outside on a full face leash.  After agreeing to board the cat Cassie and her assistant Sarah noticed the cat Ayesha had matted hair and tried combing it out. That was not working so they gave her a bath, which did not bother her in the least. Brown dye came off of her fur in the bath and Cassie noticed Ayesha had fur that was marked with rosettes. Cassie discussed the unusual fur pattern with her boyfriend Dr. Mark Coccia, Chadwick's local veterinarian. He suspected the cat was a rare Bengal pedigreed cat. They both wondered if Pierson stole the cat since the cat's fur had been dyed to hide its identity and they suspected that he would try to sell it for thousands of dollars.

A few days later Cassie saw an article on the local news showing the dead body of an unidentified person who had died in a car accident. The face belonged to Rudy Pierson. Cassie went to the local police station to report her contact with Pierson.

There were many more twists, turns and red herrings in this adorable, well plotted cozy mystery.  The pace was quick which made the story a fast read. I was captivated by the plot and read the book in one sitting.  It has been some time since I have read a perfectly written mystery, true to the mystery formula. The Bengal Identity was a delightful surprise.

The Cassie and Mark characters have perfect professional backgrounds to work together to solve clues about cat breeds. The author chose their professions well and made this cozy series more believable by the choices she made.  I also think the author came up with a great idea for a cat mystery series. Usually the cat is the sleuth in a cat mystery series which requires a suspension of belief too far for me to travel. By having the cats as the potential victims she has created a way to celebrate the cats but not get too ridiculous. I also enjoyed reading about the Bengal breed. I assume that facts about whatever breed is featured in a story will be a regular feature in each book in the series.

I loved this book and happened to find it at the library by accident. While I was waiting for a librarian to locate a book that I had on hold, this book was staring at me on the closest shelf of books.  I got lucky here.

5 out of 5 stars!

Harvest of Secrets

Harvest of Secrets is the 9th Wine Country Mystery featuring amateur sleuth Lucie Montgomery.  Lucie is a physically disabled vineyard owner in Virginia, owning Montgomery Estate Vineyard.  This is a cozy mystery series written by Ellen Crosby.

The story opens with Lucie recieving a message from one of her employees that he has found a human skull inside  a shed on her property.  She hurries over to look into it and then calls the sheriff for an investigation. A few days later a former neighbor returns to Virginia from France, Jean-Claude de Merignac. The Merignacs are a powerful winemaking family in both France and Virginia but they have been friends with Lucie's family for generations. Jean-Claude is a womanizer with a past history with many woman in Virginia. When he is found dead, there are plenty of suspects.

The book alternates between Lucie's investigation into the identity of the person whose skull was found in her shed and the local police investigation into Jean-Claude's murder.

While a huge suspension of belief is usually necessary with a cozy mystery, Harvest of Secrets was pretty believable. Lucie immediately thinks the skull belongs to a family member since the family cemetery, dating back to the 1700s, is located near the shed. After a DNA test proves her to be right this storyline just gets more interesting as it sheds light on an old secret in her family. Jean-Claude's murder investigation is not too exciting but the identity of the family member and why she was killed was a gripping story.  In fact, I think the whole Jean-Claude plot could have been eliminated. The other storyline was interesting enough to carry this book.

You should read this one! 4 out of 5 stars.

Plum Tea Crazy

Plum Tea Crazy is Laura Childs' 19th Tea Shop Mystery.  The series takes place in historic Charleston, South Carolina.  I have read all of the books in the series and have loved them.

The story opens with Indigo Tea Shop owner and amateur sleuth Theodosia Browning viewing a Gaslight and Galleons Parade from friend Timothy Neville's mansion.  A local banker, Carson Lanier, falls from a rooftop and impales himself on an iron fence. Some observers thought they heard a shot before he fell. However, it is later discovered that Lanier was shot with a bolt from a  medieval crossbow before he fell.  At the request of her friend Timothy Neville, Theodosia becomes involved in the investigation into Lanier's death.

I think this series needs a shot in the arm.  The same events happen in the same order in every book.  While I applaud the author for always having the crime committed in the first chapter so that the entire book is devoted to the whodunnit, after that the book is stale.  We series readers know that secondary character Delaine Dish will host a fashion show where 2 women will have an argument and Delaine will then have a tantrum that can only be soothed by Theodosia. We know there will be 2 extravagant tea events in her shop, although those tend to be rather interesting. We also know that the Heritage Society, chaired by Timothy Neville, will be the place where the crime or a crime will be committed. Usually it is where the crime to be solved in the book occurred. The murder place should be varied.

The main characters are great. Theodosia, her tea blender Drayton Connelley, her cook Haley and police detective Bert Tidwell are awesome. Some of the regular secondary characters are no longer interesting, especially Delaine, and the author should create some new ones. Theodosia has some eccentric relatives that maybe should become more prominent characters. Theo uses her secondary characters to help her solve murders so it is crucial that they not only be interesting but grow as characters.

I was disappointed with this installment of the series. I will give the series one more chance but if the author doesn't mix things up a bit I will stop reading it.

Shot in the Dark

Shot in the Dark is Cleo Coyle's 17th coffeehouse mystery.  It is classified as a cozy mystery series but it is a modern cozy mystery as there are hints about sex and a bit more information about the violent demise of the deceased. I presume this is due to the author being a husband and wife duo: Alice Alfonsi and Marc Cerasini.

Shot in the Dark opens with the sound of a gun going off at the Village Blend, where couples who met on an online dating site Cinder are meeting in person. A woman who was dumped by a man after a one night stand is holding a gun at him and taunting him to stop him from abusing other women. Clare Cosi, co-owner of the Blend with her ex Matt Allegro, calls the police and the woman is arrested before anyone gets hurt. Later that night while Clare is picking up her former mother-in-law from a bad date, she sees a body floating in a river. The body turns out to be a former Cinder employee who is working on starting a fitness app.  Phone videos of the event at the Blend go viral and business for both the Blend and Cinder slumps. Clare decides to lure back who she believes the murderer is by hosting an event with Cinder at the Blend but only after setting up her own fake Cinder profile to attract his attention.

Online dating apps form the background for the story.  If you are unfamiliar with them as I am you will learn how they function as well as how they affect people emotionally. I now know how to set up a fake name with a prepaid credit card and its always a good idea to register under both sexes to see what comments are being made about you. Always read the terms and conditions to be sure the app employees are not paid to read or write comments. I thought this was an interesting topic for the authors to address. I  haven't read any other authors who have used this topic and they may be the first to write about it.

A subplot with the latest designer street drug Styx is intertwined with the murder to include Mike Quinn. Quinn is now Clare's fiance and is a police detective with the NYPD.  He has been a character in the series from the beginning.

As usual with this series there is alot of coffeehouse and coffee bean lore that you will learn and there are recipes at the end of the story for some of the drinks and pastries mentioned in the book.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a modern cozy with a hint of sex and some violent descriptions of the deceased. I prefer this type of cozy.  It is more realistic for me.  The traditional cozies, which I used to love, are no longer satisfying for me. I am now only reading 3 of my usual cozy authors, Cleo Coyle, Laura Childs, and Susan Wittig Albert.

Shot in the Dark is a great addition to the series. The characters are funny as hell in this one, particularly the younger ones who staff the Village Blend and advise Clare about online dating. Also, Clare's ex-husband's unsuccessful attempts to get a date through Cinder are pretty funny since he has been known throughout the series to attract woman. Even her 80 something mother-in-law is using an online dating app but one only for those over 65. This seems out of character for both of them but the problems they run into are just plain funny.

I highly recommend this book. If you haven't read any of the earlier books in the series, you should not have any problems following the story. The authors do a good job a writing in the backstory with as little words as possible so that it doesn't detract from the current book.

Queen Anne's Lace

Queen Anne's Lace is Susan Wittig Albert's 26th China Bayles Mystery and it is a good one.  Time has not lessened the author's ability to create great mysteries for this series year after year. Queen Anne's Lace is obviously the herb featured in the novel as it is the title of the book.  It was used by many women for family planning in times long past, specifically as an herbal contraceptive and abortifacient.  This usage is detailed in a secondary plot that occurred in the 1800s.

The story opens in Pecan Springs, Texas in 1885 with the death of Annie Duncan's husband Douglas in a train accident.  Annie was so distraught that she miscarried their first child, conceived with the help of an herbal tea, later that same day.  They lived at 340 Crockett Street next to another couple, Adam and Delia Hunt.  The two men had been best friends since childhood and Adam began helping Annie with some chores after her husband's death.

In the present day, China Bayles and business associate Ruby find a chest filled with old photos and handmade lace while cleaning out a storeroom in their Crockett Street shop Thyme and Seasons. After Ruby leaves, China is left alone but hears a woman humming.  When Ruby returns she offers an explanation that the air conditioning turned on and sounded like humming. They consult a friend who is an expert on old laces to determine if there is a story behind what they found in the chest. While running the shop China mysteriously finds that her signs are being changed by someone but no one admits to changing them.

The chapters alternate between the 1800s plot and the present day plot where China's adopted daughter has entered two chickens in the county fair. While the story is basically about the 1800s the only real crime in the book occurs at the end of the story at the fair.  This is most unusual for a cozy mystery series based on solving crimes.  However, the 1800s story is so compelling who cares whether there is a crime, unless you want to consider the moral crimes committed here?

I LOVED this book.  The new characters comprising the 1800s plot were interesting, complex and romantic. If you love digging into your genealogical history, you will enjoy China and her friends trying to figure out who the people are in the photographs as well as what the background is on the laces that they found.  As a bobbin lace maker, I appreciated the information on the different types of laces that China's expert gave.  How they fit into the story is for you to find out when you read Queen Anne's Lace. 

The Vineyard Victims

The Vineyard Victims is Ellen Crosby's 8th Wine Country Mystery and it is a wonderful addition to the series.  The story opens with the main character, Lucie Montgomery, swerving her car to avoid crashing into a car driven by former presidential nominee and billionaire Jamison (Jamie) Vaughn.  Vaughn crashes his car into the stone pillar that is the entrance to Lucie's vineyard.  Lucie does not hear him trying to stop his car and after he refuses her help to get out of his car she believes that he was suicidal. The car caught fire and Lucie heard his screams as the fire consumed his body.  Vaughn, however, told Lucie before he died that he wanted her to "tell Rick to forgive me."

Lucie soon discovers that there might be a connection to Vaughn's desire to die and a 30 year old murder that occurred when he was at college with his wife, campaign manager and a deceased friend.    A handyman, Taurique Youngblood, was convicted of the murder but a civil rights group, the St. Leonard Project, has taken on his case as they believe that he is innocent of this crime.

The author did a good job of weaving in characters and facts from earlier books in the series and anyone would be able to follow the plot without reading the earlier 7 books.  Facts about wine abound in the book which made the book fun to read.  The Vaughn's own a nearby vineyard and were planning to host a fundraiser to eliminate Vaughn's campaign debt by featuring a wine from the 1890s.  They had several bottles of the wine and only a select few people at the fundraiser, $20,000 per ticket, were going to have the pleasure of drinking the wine.  Lucie's winemaker, Quinn Santoro, believed that the Vaughn's tampered with this wine as it should have tasted like vinegar due to its age but that is a secondary story.  Most of the wine lore surrounded this wine, called the Norton wine, instead of Lucie's wines which is a little unusual.  However, it did not affect the enjoyability of this book.

Cozy lovers should take note of this series if they haven't already!