A twinned manuscript is found in the rubble of a bombed out Berlin at the end of World War II. One half of the manuscript is the journal of former Abwehr agent Adrian de Groot, recounting the daily life of a German citizen forced to work for the Nazi regime. The other is a fantastical…
The tenth installment of the Rowland Sinclair Mystery series finds our quartet of detecting friends summoned from a sultry Singapore to a far colder Boston, and for less than pleasant reasons. Daniel Cartwright, Rowland’s good friend from their college days in Oxford, has unexpectedly passed away. Even more unexpectedly, he appointed Rowland the executor of…
The 50th book in Robert B. Parker’s iconic Spenser series is also, alas, Ace Atkins’ last time at the helm. Fortunately for us readers, he goes out with a bang, presenting us with an absorbing tale that has Spenser and co grappling with issues ripped straight from the headlines. Congresswoman Carolina Garcia-Ramirez, or CGR for…
Abigail Beanblossom is part-owner of Beanblossom’s Tea and Tarot, a teashop that also provides Tarot reading services overseen by her business partner, Hyperion Night. But as this second novel in the series opens, she’s in a different sort of partnership with her former boss turned best friend, Razzzor, who’s enlisted her help in staking out…
With this latest cozy novel, Barbara Ross cements her status as my favorite living mystery writer. In less than three hundred pages, she delivers yet another taut, intelligent tale full of empathy and sensitivity, written with both economy and verve. Her style hearkens back to the Golden Age detective novels that presented real intellectual puzzles…
Regan Merritt is done with working in law enforcement despite her stellar career in the U.S. Marshals Service. Now she’s back in Flagstaff, Arizona, licking her wounds while staying with her dad in her childhood home. When her former mentor at Northern Arizona University (NAU), hearing that she’s in town, asks for her to be…
I love Tarot, and I love tea, and I love Kirsten Weiss’s witty, whip-smart writing. All these aspects are delightfully combined in her Tea and Tarot Mystery series, beginning with this novel, Steeped in Murder. Our heroine, Abigail Beanblossom, has worked hard to save enough money to be able to open the teashop of her…
Ashland, Oregon is all aflutter with the upcoming debut of a long-lost Shakespeare manuscript, set to be unveiled at a gala held by the local Southern Oregon Museum of Art. Director Javier de la Garza has contacted our heroine, Juliet Montague Capshaw (Jules, for short) to see whether her bakery-cafe Torte will cater the festivities…
Win Crewse is super excited about the new food truck she bought to expand the operations of her family’s ice cream store, Crewse Creamery. With summer festivities well underway in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, the ice cream truck is proving a wise investment, especially since it’s allowing the creamery to essentially have two locations open. One…
Molly Gray is a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel in addition to being quite an unusual young person, and not just in how much she loves her job. She gains a deep satisfaction from making things tidy and bringing order back to chaos. While seemingly bland and simple on the surface, she has a…
