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Monday, February 1, 2016

Cozy Monday

A Disguise to Die For (Costume Shop mystery #1) by Diane Vallere (Berkley Prime Crime mass market paperback, 2 February 2016).

Margo Tamblyn takes a few days from her job as a magician's assistant in Las Vegas and goes home to Proper City, Nevada to look after the family's costume shop, Disguise Delimit (say it out loud, if you don't get it).

Her first day back at the shop, a young man comes in and orders forty costumes for a detective-themed birthday party.  Blitz Manners and his frenemy Grady O'Toole were having a competition to see who could throw the best (most expensive) costume party, which Blitz thinks he can win by buying costumes from Disguise Delimit and hiring her friend Ebony Welles to plan the party.  

Margo attends the party as Ebony's assistant, and all seems to be going well until she walks into the kitchen and sees Ebony holding a large carving knife. Not alarming, except for the fact that Blitz's body is lying on the floor in front of her.

Margo is certain that Ebony did not kill the obnoxious young man, but she doesn't know how to prove it.  Her task becomes even more difficult as pieces of evidence leading to Ebony's guilt start popping up.

Diane Vallere (who also writes the Material Witness series for BPC) is one of my favorite cozy writers at present.  Her characters and locales are unusual but believable, and this engaging story is no exception.  

At the end is an excerpt from the second book in the series, Masking for Trouble, though no release date is given.


The publisher has generously offered a copy of A Disguise to Die for to one of my readers. Please comment below by 12:01 a.m. on Monday, February 8. Please don't forget to include an email address where I can contact you if you win. Entries from the U.S. only, please.

FTC Full Disclosure: Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with a review copy of this book.




12 comments:

  1. Costume Shop Mystery series - this should lead to all kinds of unusual plots! Book 1 sounds terrific.
    kpbarnett1941[at]aol.com

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  2. Excited ! seascapelife at gmail dot com

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  3. What a great background for a mystery setting. Thanks for the review. robeader53@yahoo.com

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  4. Sounds like a fun new series. I love the cover with the deerstalker. pattie.tierney@gmail.com

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  5. Thank you, Stuff and Nonsense! (Book 2 will be out in October, just in time for Halloween!)

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  6. As a long time costumer and cosy reader, I'd love to read this. mad_madam_m@telus.net

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  7. A costume shop series sounds intriguing. I can't wait to read.
    diannekc8@gmail.com

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  8. This sounds like a series that I would enjoy reading! Thank you!
    mittens0831 at aol dot com

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  9. I enjoy this author's other series so I am looking forword to this new series.

    gibsonbk at hiwaay dot net

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  10. This costume shop mystery looks like fun reading. I love the name of the shop: Disquise Delimit! Can't wait to read it!
    CocoIhle(at)gmail(dot)com

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  11. I've read Diane's work before and loved it, so I was already looking forward to reading this. The whole costume shop thing just made it more appealing. Thanks for the chance to win.

    robbfan141729@yahoo.com

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  12. I lead a mystery reading group and we love to pair a series with a restaurant, ie a Chinese mystery with a chinese restaurant. Our most recent attempt was to pair food truck mysteries with a dinner at Off The Grid. I can just see us all tromping into a restaurant in disguise. Thanks for programming ideas!
    karen94066 at aol dot com

    ReplyDelete