It’s pretty clear from the start of this darkly comic meditation on death and the afterlife that Angus Mooney, our main protagonist, is dead. The kind of juvenile hoodlum who grows up to be only marginally employed, Angus finally finds direction after meeting the beautiful, irrepressible Gracie Adler. The two quickly fall in love and…
Buckle up, fans of the Death by Chocolate series, it’s going to be a bumpy night! Jake Tiptree and Ellie White are dazzled when movie star Ingrid Merryfield steps into their Chocolate Moose Bakery one evening, interrupting their discussion over whether to keep their somewhat out-of-the-way store open for the winter. Ingrid has just bought…
Vera Vixen is enjoying celebrating the end of fall at Shady Hollow’s annual Harvest Festival in the company of her beau, Deputy Orville Braun. It’s a rare day off for them both: she’s the local newspaper’s star reporter, while he’s the one who usually does the heavy lifting in the town’s police station, where he’s…
This astonishingly fresh update on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein had me up reading all night, so absorbed was I in the narrative—and so intent on finding out what shocking plot twist was waiting for me next. Violet Hildreth lives with her little brother Eric and their Gran on the grounds of an innovative—for 1978 anyway—treatment facility…
I am only sorry that I’m coming into this series just as it’s ending! This seventh book in the Seaside Cafe Mystery series neatly wraps up all the overarching storylines in such a way that even I, a newcomer to the books, felt completely satisfied and heart-warmed even as it made me want to go…
Sherry Oliveri is feeling pretty down about a hand injury forcing her to withdraw from the Kitchen Royalty Cook-Off being held in her own hometown of Augustin, Connecticut. At least this gives her the opportunity to root on her good friend Amber Sherwin in the same competition. Despite the two having met as competitors in…
Letty Davenport is very much the daughter of John Sandford’s regular series hero, US Marshall Lucas Davenport: tough, smart, and more interested in justice than the law. She’s also a bored 24-year-old working as a researcher for Senator Christopher Colles. When she tries to hand in her resignation after a routine (for her) look into…
Detective Marcus Tullius Jarsdel isn’t your average cop. Known as the “professor detective” after abandoning work on his PhD in ancient history to enroll in the police academy instead, Jarsdel has the kind of free-floating intellect that helps him piece together disparate clues to solve tricky cases. This serves him in good stead as a…
Country store and B&B owner Robbie Jordan is savoring newlywed life with Abe O’Neill, her husband of six weeks, despite the sultry summer weather. The heat is almost but not quite enough to mar their latest visit to Jupiter Park to watch the weekly fireworks display put on by their patriotic South Lick, Indiana, town.…
Charm presides over Orchard House, the foremost gentlemen’s club in Boren, where those with money and inclination can find an excellent meal and amiable company, whether it be at the card tables with other members of the nobility or in the rooms on the second floor with one of Mistress Charm’s boneghosts. Charm is the…
