MYSTERY

SHADY HOLLOW

Black, Juneau Vintage Crime/Black Lizard (240 pp.) $16.00 paper | Jan. 25, 2022 978-0-593-31571-2

Under the fig-leaf Black pseudonym, newcomers Jocelyn Cole and Sharon Nagel introduce an animals-only village in which members of many species coexist, except when they’re killing each other.

Nobody much liked Otto Sumpf, but nobody can imagine who disliked the toad enough to stab him in the back and dump him into a pond. The mystery deepens when Solomon Broadhead, the adder who serves as Shady Hollow’s medical examiner, announces that Otto has been poisoned as well, presumably by something introduced into the bottle of plum wine foxy reporter Vera Vixen found near his body. Tracing the bottle to its likely source, the Bamboo Patch vegetarian restaurant, she learns from owner Sun Li, a giant panda with a medical background, that the likely agent was heartstill, a little of which goes a long way. Of the two bears in the local police, Chief Theodore Meade is as usual out past his depth, and the paw prints at the crime scene have led Deputy Orville Braun to arrest crooked raccoon Lefty, who’s obviously innocent of this particular crime. The killer meanwhile moves on to bigger game, wealthy sawmill owner Reginald von Beaverpelt, who survives one murder attempt thanks to Sun Li but not a second, leaving Shady Hollow on shaky financial ground. Although it’s clear that Reginald has been carrying on with rest-home aide Ruby Ewing, the authors mercifully avoid any lurid details of beaver-sheep sex. Instead, intrepid Vera, the most charming figure here, dutifully checks alibis and interviews suspects who draw more clearly on human than animal stereotypes.

A series debut that retains many of the conventions of a village cozy, just more broadly drawn, like a greeting card.

PIGNON SCORBION & THE BARBERSHOP DETECTIVES

Bleiweiss, Rick Blackstone Publishing (300 pp.) $26.99 | Feb. 8, 2022 978-1-66504-675-6

Bleiweiss’ first novel is actually a cycle of stories starring a new police inspector who comes to the town of Haxford in 1910 and quickly impresses the locals. The first case for the eponymous sleuth is that of William Bentine, an even more recent arrival whose mother, tavern singer Mary Alice Bentine, told him that he was the natural son of Mortimer Gromley, who retired after making a pile in linen sales. Gromley indignantly denies the charge, and his wife, Cora, turns out to be an unexpectedly supportive witness. So Scorbion, assisted by his old friend Calvin Brown and the other employees of Brown’s barbershop, must question everyone involved and determine who’s telling the truth and who’s not. The second case revolves around the Hopkins Traveling Circus, whose employees come under suspicion in the death of Victor Hutchfield, the woodworker who’d crafted a king-sized pair of stilts for pint-sized Freddy Rumple, an aspiring stilt walker who’d commissioned the extra-long stilts in the hope of setting himself apart from all the other stilt walkers in England. The third and most elaborate case begins with the disappearance of farmer George Barlan’s hog and proceeds to the slaughter of Barlan himself. Throughout it all, Scorbion, an obvious parody of Hercule Poirot, comes across as a comically obsessive dandy who interrogates his way thoroughly and methodically through a series of mysteries as lacking in inspiration as he is in brilliance. Bleiweiss seems to have mastered every convention of golden age detective stories except the ones that made them great.

Routine puzzles solved by a detective who can’t hold a candle to Hercule Poirot. Quel dommage!

SPIRITS AND SOURDOUGH

Cates, Bailey Berkley (288 pp.) $8.99 paper | Jan. 4, 2022 978-0-593099-24-7

A hedge witch and her accomplished cohort investigate a murder and more. Now that Katie Lightfoot’s solved the mystery that threatened her wedding to Declan McCarthy in Witches and Wedding Cake (2020), she’s enjoying married life and working with her aunt and uncle at the Honeybee Bakery, where everything she bakes gets a little something extra to enhance the experience. Katie, who’s not from Savannah originally, looks forward to a ghost tour, complete with tales of the exceedingly haunted city. Tour guide Teddy LaRue, who has the ability to see ghosts, announces that a woman’s just been murdered and is asking Katie to find her killer. When Teddy describes the victim, Katie realizes it’s probably Leigh Markes, an art gallery owner who was recently in the bakery with her book club when a nasty verbal fight broke out. Katie reports the crime to a detective she’s worked with before. Of course, he doesn’t believe her until the body is found, sweeping Katie up once again in the search for a killer. The job steals precious time from her own personal goal: finding Declan’s guardian spirit, Connell, who’s wandering lost in the ether. Leigh had a complicated life and a number of enemies, and Katie and her friends must use all their powers to identify the murderer and recover Connell.

Even readers who shun paranormal activities can enjoy this mystery, larded with charmingly quirky characters.

FINLAY DONOVAN KNOCKS ’EM DEAD

Cosimano, Elle Minotaur (368 pp.) $26.99 | Feb. 1, 2022 978-1-2502-4218-1

Fresh from a debut in which she kept getting offered money to kill people who then fortuitously died, novelist Finlay Donovan goes another round with murder most absurd.

Somebody besides Finn must be unhappy with her ex, sod farmer Steven Donovan, because a message-board poster identifying herself only as FedUp broadly hints that she’d pay $100,000 to anyone who’d dispose of him. As Finn looks on in virtual horror, another poster, EasyClean, accepts the proposition. Run ragged as she already is by the usual domestic problems—caring for her two small children, juggling hot law student Julian Baker and Nicholas Anthony, the Fairfax County detective who’s still interested in her despite what she put him through in Finlay Donovan Is Killing It (2021), struggling to get started on her next suspense novel—Finn tries to rescue Steven, who deserves execration but not execution, by hiring a teenage network expert named Cam to identify EasyClean. When Cam comes up empty, the only other thing Finn can think of is to volunteer to do the hit herself for half the price. Unfortunately, she makes her cut-rate offer using a public Wi-Fi connection, exposing herself and her nanny/sidekick, endlessly resourceful accounting student Veronica Ruiz, to all manner of perils. The discovery that the message board is secretly owned by Feliks Zhirov, the mobster Finn’s last adventure ended up sending to prison, just increases the riotous complications. Long after everything has apparently spiraled out of control or even comprehension, the author springs one last revelation that, if it doesn’t pull everything together, goes a long way toward justifying the bumpy ride.

Given the challenge of matching her first novel’s gorgeous premise, Cosimano does a remarkable job. What next?

HONEY ROASTED

Coyle, Cleo Berkley (368 pp.) $27.00 | Jan. 25, 2022 978-0-593197-56-1

Coyle’s latest Coffeehouse mystery is a honey of a tale. Village Blend manager and master coffee roaster Clare Cosi is laser-focused on her wedding to NYPD detective Mike Quinn and the fabulous honeyprocessed arabica beans imported by her former husband, Matt Allegro. Little does she know that honeybees are about to put her in a sticky situation. Although she’s actively planning her honeymoon, her relationship with Quinn has been on rocky ground lately, as he seems obsessed with work. When a swarm of bees invades the shop, Clare calls on the little-known NYPD beekeeping unit to round up the buzzing rascals. Realizing that the bees smell of lavender, she’s certain they belong to Bea Hastings, an old friend of Matt’s mother’s and a supplier of gourmet honey for the shop. Bea is a wealthy woman who’s built a vast greenhouse on the roof of her apartment building, where she grows lavender for the bees. Upon their arrival at the greenhouse, Clare and Matt find damaged hives, bees dead from the cold, and Bea lying on her terrace after falling from the roof. Rappelling down, Mike confirms that Bea is comatose but alive. The police assume that her fall was an accident or a suicide attempt. But Clare, certain that queen Bea would never kill herself, gets entangled with a hive of her past and present enemies. She discovers the boyfriend of Bea’s missing niece, a dicey food-growing startup, and a connection to drug dealers who’ve been dumping bodies in an obscure Brooklyn neighborhood. Will Clare be stung by her attempts to solve the mystery?

A primer on bees, coffee, and some of New York’s most unusual and exciting areas make for a fascinating and mysterious read.

LONG OVERDUE AT THE LAKESIDE LIBRARY

Danvers, Holly Crooked Lane (304 pp.) $26.99 | Feb. 8, 2022 978-1-64385-890-6

When her best friend’s husband is accused of murder, a small-town librarian eager to clear his name struggles to keep her friend’s help from getting in the way.

Back in the Wisconsin lakeside town of Lofty Pines to run her family’s library after her misadventures in love and life, Rain Wilmot is starting to feel at home again. She’s glad to spend time with her close friend Julia and Julia’s brother, Jace (a potential romantic partner), and she loves helping locals with library finds—for example, getting Wallace Benson the perfect cookbook when he shows up looking for something for the annual Ice Fishing Jamboree’s chili dump. Rain is no ice fisher, and she’s never met Wallace before, but his enthusiasm is contagious, and she feels a connection with him. Even so, she senses that something’s off; maybe Wallace is going through some sort of transition she never finds a way to ask about. At the jamboree, Rain warms up in Julia and her husband Nick’s tent, and she and Julia are happily chatting while Nick ducks out to prepare for the ice fishing. Moments after he returns with a cut on his hand, a strange woman runs up to him and accuses him of murder. Rain, Julia, and Nick are shocked: What murder? Soon enough, Jace arrives in his official capacity as a police officer. The woman accusing Nick is the wife of Wallace, who’s been killed in his neighboring ice shanty. Jace can’t offer his brother-in-law much help, and Nick is soon the prime suspect. Rain wants to help clear his name, and Julia wants to be part of the effort, but her continued interference threatens to derail Rain’s mission.

Interest in an ice fishing jamboree may be a prerequisite.

“A fifth dose of murder involving the Mitford family.”

the mitford vanishing

THE MITFORD VANISHING

Fellowes, Jessica Minotaur (416 pp.) $28.99 | Jan. 18, 2022 978-1-2508-1920-8

A fifth dose of murder involving the Mitford family carries a maid-turneddetective from London to the Continent in the middle of the Spanish Civil War. It’s 1937. Having proven her worth in solving a number of mysteries, Louisa Cannon, who once worked as a maid for the notorious Mitford family, is married to a former police detective with whom she’s partnered in a detective agency. In that capacity, she receives a note from Nancy Mitford begging for help in finding her sister Jessica, aka Decca. The political leanings of the family range from fascists and Nazis to Decca, who claims to be a communist. She’s supposed to be vacationing in France, but none of her friends and relatives know where she is. In addition, Louisa takes on the case of Petunia Attwood, a missing woman who was involved in a dispute at work. The police have no interest in looking for an adult woman, but Louisa fears she may be in trouble. The man Petunia crossed swords with at work is also missing, and his downtrodden wife seems glad he’s gone. At length Louisa discovers that Decca has run off with her communist cousin Esmond Romilly, who’s been in Spain and plans to return there. The detecting duo travel back and forth as go-betweens for the family while Louisa becomes more deeply involved in a possible murder closer to home and several missing persons whose fates also involve the war in Spain.

A fascinating story based on real people and places.

A VALIANT DECEIT

Graves, Stephanie Kensington (304 pp.) $26.00 | Jan. 25, 2022 978-1-4967-3152-4

In 1941, an English pigeon breeder resolves to continue her contributions to the war effort. Olive Bright of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry got involved in intelligence work when she agreed to use her pigeons to carry messages back from occupied Europe. She and her superior officer, Capt. Jameson Aldridge, are pretending to be in love to account for all the time they spend together, but although Olive finds the enigmatic Jamie more and more attractive, he seems to find her more and more annoying because of her tendency toward sleuthing—which has recently produced some excellent results. Olive is working to find the birds best suited to work with a group of Belgian agents due to be dropped into France to help the Resistance, even looking for some in her dovecote that have Belgian heritage, since her father had brought back a pigeon from Antwerp years ago. But when some Girl Guides find the body of Lt. Jeremy Beckett in the woods near a radio wire, she sets out, much to Jamie’s despair, to prove that he met with foul play. Although Beckett’s death is written off as an accident, Olive is convinced that German spies are at work, especially when she finds a pilot’s silk map, marked with a few tiny crosses near Berlin, clutched in Beckett’s hand. Olive reluctantly decides that her three fellow FANY office workers are the most likely suspects, but proving it while keeping up with her work with the pigeons and the village effort to support the war will prove difficult and dangerous.

Perfect for lovers of wartime novels that combine history, mystery, and romance.

MURDER AT A SCOTTISH SOCIAL

Hall, Traci Kensington (304 pp.) $15.95 paper | Jan. 25, 2022 978-1-4967-2603-2

A clique of rich women make life so miserable for someone that it leads to murder. Paislee Shaw, owner of Cashmere Crush in Nairn, Scotland, is all for a peaceful life raising her son and knitting, but an invitation to a fundraiser for the local food bank involves her in yet another murder. Paislee packs her wares and goes to join several friends sharing a table at the recently renovated Social Club and Art Centre, including her newest friend, Blaise O’Connor, who’s well off and devoted to her husband, Shep, the pro at the local golf course. Blaise is verbally attacked by the nasty alpha mom Kirsten Buchanan, whose husband helped Shep get his job and knows a lot of secrets she isn’t afraid to spill. The day features a lot of backbiting between Kirsten and her sycophants, Mari, who’s bulimic, and Christina, who drinks. Sales go well until the ill-fated baking contest: When Kirsten tastes her own shortbread before presenting it to the judges, she goes into anaphylactic shock—and her EpiPens are missing. Despite Paislee’s best efforts at CPR, Kirsten dies. Kirsten had a severe peanut allergy well known to all her friends, but the personal chef she’d just fired is the prime suspect. Paislee thinks he’s innocent and hopes to convince her attractive nemesis, DI Mack Zeffer, of that fact, when she isn’t busy dealing with her son being bullied and her grandfather’s hidden secrets.

Our heroine solves her mysteries with aplomb against a delightful Scottish background replete with good friends and a loyal dog.

PALMS, PARADISE, POISON

Keyse-Walker, John Severn House (224 pp.) $28.99 | Jan. 4, 2022 978-0-7278-5080-5

A Caribbean copper hunts an escaped killer. Constable Teddy Creque of the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force has a long history with troublesome women. So when he hears that the convict who escaped from prison on Tortola is Marianna Orro, aka Queen Ya-Ya, he knows that he’s going to be in for it. But first he has to deal with another equally deadly female: Hurricane Leatha, which is bearing down on Anegada, the little island it’s his sworn duty to protect. Kevin Faulkner, a seasoned fisherman who should know better, has sailed out into the storm in his boat, Isabella, and Teddy must take the police skiff Lily B after him. What he finds when he catches up to Isabella is one dead Kevin and one very much alive Ya-Ya. He locks the 6-foot-tall escapee in his local jail, but when he comes back from another rescue in Pomato Point, the cell is empty. No one can explain how the majestic Ya-Ya managed to escape again, although when Nanny Giles reports her boat, the Horse-eye, missing, he has an idea where she went. And when the Horse-eye turns up on a deserted beach in Cuba, Teddy gets the surprise of his life: The RVIPF is sending him to Cuba to bring it back. In Havana he meets the woman who may be the scariest of all—Subteniente Luz Garcia of the Policía Nacional Revolucionaria, whose revolutionary fervor is matched only by her devotion to the orishas of Santeria—and she takes him on a ride that makes Leatha look tame.

The battle between rational, supernatural, and criminal provides a tropical treat like no other.

EASTER BONNET MURDER

Meier, Leslie Kensington (304 pp.) $26.00 | Jan. 25, 2022 978-1-4967-3373-3

A missing senior spells trouble for reporter Lucy Stone. Now that publisher Ted Stillings has merged Tinker’s Cove’s Pennysaver with the nearby Gilead Gabber to create the regional Courier, Lucy’s been hoping to cover bigger stories than the local school board meeting. Still, when she’s asked to cover the annual Easter bonnet contest at Heritage House, the local senior living facility, she’s happy to oblige. For one thing, her dear friend Miss Julia Ward Howe Tilley is at Heritage House recovering from a nasty bout of pneumonia. For another, Bev, Dorothy, and Bitsy, the three residents who corner her on her visit to Miss Tilley, remind her how important it is not to neglect the surviving members of the Greatest Generation. But when she gets a frantic phone call from Geri Mazzone saying that her mother, Agnes Neal, has disappeared from Heritage House, Lucy begins to scent trouble. Agnes is one of the youngest of the residents and certainly one of the sharpest. She spent years as a war correspondent covering the most dangerous conflicts across Europe. Now in her 70s, she doesn’t need any care—she just got sick of taking care of her house. So she sold it and moved someplace where she could enjoy gourmet meals and nearby bird-watching trails. Easter bonnets give Lucy a good cover story for her investigation, and Miss Tilley provides her with eyes and ears on the premises. But will a tough old bird and a gal with a nose for news be a match for serious bad guys who prey on seniors?

Small-town evil at its smarmiest.

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA MURDERS

Traubel, Helen Poisoned Pen (208 pp.) $14.99 paper | Feb. 1, 2022 978-1-4642-1590-2

The headline news about this reprinting of the famed soprano’s 1951 behindthe-scenes whodunit isn’t in its plot but in its byline. Someone is clearly trying to kill soprano Elsa Vaughn, but whoever it is keeps missing and hitting someone else. Following several earlier close calls, retired Heldentenor Rudolf Salz has to be carried out of the prompter’s box after he succumbs to the strychnine in a bottle of Scotch originally purchased by business manager Howard Stark for Elsa, who’s performing onstage as Brünnehilde: “Perhaps it was only natural that her next note was a full octave off pitch.” Tenor Karl Ecker, singing Siegmund, delivers the perfect epitaph: “Salz should have died elsewhere.” When rising rival soprano Hilda Semple, a Salz protégée who’s been under contract to him, is shot to death as she sits at Elsa’s dressing table during intermission a few days later, Traubel dryly observes: “The second and third acts of Tristan und Isolde as sung that afternoon were barely adequate.” Unfortunately, gems like these are few and far between, dominated though not upstaged by backstage intrigues swirling around meddlesome patron Edwina DeBrett; her wealthy husband, Stanley; Stanley’s daughter, Elsa’s ambitious pupil Jane; and his late sister, Ivy, whose marriage to Karl was cut short a year ago when she was killed in a home robbery. Then why, wonders Lt. Sam Quentin, has a pin the thief stole just now turned up in a pawnshop? The big reveal comes early on, when editor Leslie S. Klinger identifies Traubel’s ghostwriter as Harold Q. Masur, who went on to write a series of legal thrillers more thrilling than this.

The obvious audience: opera lovers whom the pandemic has denied live performances. They’ll get to visit the old Met too.