Chapter 1 A BITING JANUARY WIND BLEW into the taproom as the front door to Nitro opened and a group of skiers traipsed inside. They were loaded down with gear—expensive puffy parkas in an array of bright colors, ski goggles, boots, and poles. A slightly overweight guy with a pinched face and an entitled…
We teamed up with five cozy mystery writers to create a short story in real-time. The end result was “Sweet Voodoo Magic” which you can read in full below! A special thank you goes out to the participating authors (in order of appearance): Hannah Dennison, S.C. Perkins, Donna Andrews, Diane Kelly, and Ellie Alexander. The…
Start your spring reading with six cozy mysteries! Enter below for a chance to win: one ARC of Lineage Most Lethal by S.C. Perkins one mass market paperback copy of Hems & Homicide by Elizabeth Penny one mass market paperback copy of Egg Drop Dead by Vivien Chien one hardcover copy of The Stolen Letter…
I’m constantly on the hunt for interesting baking trends to work into my mystery series. I want readers to feel fully immersed in the sensory world of an artisan kitchen when they step into the pages of my books. I want you to be able to smell herbaceous rosemary flatbread charring in a wood-fired oven,…
Life is sweet once you step into Torte, everybody’s favorite small-town bakeshop. But what happens when it becomes the scene of a crime? Take a visual tour of Ellie Alexander’s ninth Bakeshop Mystery, Live and Let Pie! The heat is on for pastry chef, family business operator, and unlikely sleuth Jules Capshaw. Just when she thought…
Every Wednesday, we here at Criminal Element will put together a list of Staff Picks of the books that published the day before—sharing the ones that we are looking forward to reading the most! This week, M. C. Beaton’s 29th Agatha Raisin Mystery combines with Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker’s Dracula prequel, Dracul, to make for a killer week…
The Pint of No Return marks the second installment in Ellie Alexander’s Sloan Krause Mystery series and returns readers to Leavenworth, Washington, aka “Beervaria,” where craft brewer and amateur crime sleuth Sloan Krause is drawn into helping solve another murder, that of an obnoxious beer film documentary host who turns up dead on Oktoberfest eve.…
It’s fall, also known as beer season. As crisp leaves turn golden yellow, this is the time of year to pour yourself a gorgeous hoppy pint as you cheer on your favorite football team or pull on your lederhosen and hit Oktoberfest for a selection of the best craft beer in the world. However, while…
The Pint of No Return by Ellie Alexander is the second book in the Sloan Krause Mystery series, where the amateur sleuth investigates a movie star who’s murdered not long after arriving in Leavenworth, WA, to film his latest project. No other festival compares to Oktoberfest in Leavenworth, Washington. The whole town is buzzing with excitement…
Love is in the air in the artsy Oregon town of Ashland as the inhabitants conspire to throw a dream Elizabethan wedding for two of their favorite citizens: Helen Capshaw, part-owner of the beloved Torte bakery, and the Professor, as Ashland’s lead police detective is fondly known. Jules Capshaw, Helen’s daughter and our heroine, is…
