Mystery Monday - My 2025 favorites

For Duck's Sake (Meg Lanslow #37) by Donna Andrews ((St. Martin's Press, 2025).

Just Another Dead Author (Berit Gardner #2) by Katrina Bivald (Poisoned Pen Press, 2025).

From Cradle to Grave (Her Royal Spyness #19) by Rhys Bowen (Penguin Group, 2025).

Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds by Alison Brennan (MIRA Books, 2025).

Death of a Forest Fairy (Hungarian Tea House #4) by Julia Buckley (Julia Buckley, 2025).

The Wexford Carole (Imogen Durant #2) by Janice MacDonald (Ravenstone Press, 2025).

The Marigold Cottages Murder Collective by Jo Nichols (St. Martin's Press, 2025).

The Busybody Book Club by Freya Sampson (Penguin Group, 2025).

November favorites

The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict.  St, Martin's Press, 11 February 2025.

London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment.

May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods. The murder has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which these authors are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without anyone noticing?

The Magpie Oracle of Sense and Serendipity by Ciara Blume.  Dolce Villa Press, 30 September 2025.

When the elusive Djinn Night Market appears under each crescent moon, it draws the lost and the searching to its shimmering alleys. Everyone arrives seeking something that’s missing, but what visitors leave with is rarely what they came looking for.

Coriander just wanted one last chance to dine with her mother, so she made a reservation at the Afterlife Cafe. Rosie desperately needs to locate the stolen grimoire that holds the key to her true power and identity. And Barzilay, keeper of memories and dragons, and a guide for lost souls, must somehow find his way home after forgetting his own story.

As a cryptic oracle floods Primrose Court with magical warnings and gossip-filled prophecies, all paths seem to lead back to the Night Market. But with time slipping away and second chances growing scarce, will three lost souls discover their role in mending not just their own hearts, but each other as well?

A spellbinding tale of healing, chosen family, and the magic that lives in small moments. It also features a sentient bookshop, literary squirrels, and the never ending quest for the perfect wedge of cheese.

Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds by Alison Brennan.  MIRA Books, 17 June 2025.

Mia Crawford is responsible to a fault. She has to be. Between her high-demand job and taking care of her grandmother and her cats, she has little time for anything else. What time she does have, she pours into reading. Mysteries, romances, thrillers…books filled with women who are far more impulsive than she would ever dream of being. Now, forced into
taking a long-overdue vacation, she finds herself on a luxurious private island where she just might have a chance to reinvent herself—for a little while, anyway. She can explore the island. Flirt shamelessly with a cute bartender. Have a vacation fling. Live like a heroine in one of her favorite novels.

Or she can curl up with a good book on the beach. Turns out reinventing yourself is easier planned than done. But when gossipy notes written in the margins of an old book turn out to be clues to the disappearance of another guest, Mia finds herself diving headfirst into a dangerous adventure. With everyone at the resort hiding secrets of their own, she’ll have to solve this real-life mystery before she becomes the next target. 

Wexford Carole (Imogen Durant Mysteries #2) by Janice MacDonald.  Ravenstone Books, 22 October 2025.

After all the drama during her last trip, Imogene Durant is looking forward to spending some time in the Irish countryside, visiting with an old school friend and working on the edits for her new book. With good food, friends and lots of comfy sweaters, her idyllic surroundings are rudely interrupted when a young woman with a bright future is found dead and worse, Imogene’s friend’s daughter is accused of the crime.

Witches of Dubious Origin by Jenn McKinlay.  Ace, 28 October 2025.

Zoe Ziakas enjoys a quiet life, working as a librarian in her quaint New England town. When a mysterious black book with an unbreakable latch is delivered to the library, Zoe has a strange feeling the tome is somehow calling to her. She decides to consult the Museum of Literature, home to volumes of indecipherable secrets, some possessing dark magic that must be guarded.

Here, among their most dangerous collection, the Books of Dubious Origin, Zoe discovers that she is the last descendant of a family of witches and this little black book is their grimoire. Zoe knows she must decode the family’s spell book and solve the mystery of what happened to her mother and her grandmother. 

With assistance from the eccentric staff of the Books of Dubious Origin department—including their annoyingly smart and handsome containment specialist, Jasper Griffin—Zoe must confront her past and the legacy of her family. 

A Resistance of Witches by Morgan Ryan.  Viking, 15 July 2025.

Stubborn, plain-spoken and from an unimpressive family, Lydia Polk never expected to be accepted into the Royal Academy of Witches. Now, with Hitler’s army rampaging across Europe, the witches of Britain have joined the war effort, and Lydia is key to the cause: she must use her magic to track down magical relics before Hitler and his sycophants can. When a Nazi witch infiltrates the Academy with heart-breaking consequences, the coven is left shaken, exposed and divided. The elder British witches have no interest in further loss of coven life in service of a government that has forced them into hiding for decades, no matter the consequences to the world. But with the discovery of the Grimorium Bellum, an ancient book that leaves a trail of death and destruction wherever it goes, Lydia knows her mission has never been more urgent.

Alone and woefully outnumbered, Lydia makes her way to the heart of occupied France, where she finds allies in Rebecca Gagne—a fierce French resistance fighter chockful of secrets—and Henry Boudreaux—a handsome Haitian-American art historian with a little magic of his own. Together, they traverse the country, stalked by the natural and supernatural alike, in search of the grimoire. But, as Lydia soon discovers, finding the book is only half the battle—the Grimorium Bellum has a dark agenda all its own. Lydia must subdue it before the Witches of the Third Reich can use it—but first, she’ll have to survive the book herself.

February Favorites

 Hall, Rachel Howzell.  The Last One.  Entangled Publishing, 3 December 2024.

This unputdownable fantasy begins when Kai wakes up not knowing who, or where she is, but she knows she's been assaulted because her attacker is still on top of her. Frustratingly, she must depend upon this attacker to find out who she is.

****

Heath, Sue.  The Secret Ingredient. One Last Chapter, 18 January 2024.

Kate is having a hard time recovering from her husband's death in a car accident.  Just over three years later, with the help of friends and neighbors, she begins to find herself again.  

****

MacDonald, Janice.  Victor and Me in Paris (An Imogene Durant Mystery).  Ravenstone, 15 November 2024.

Novelist and retired professor Imogene Durant rents an apartment in Paris to heal from her divorce and find inspiration for a new novel. She didn't expect to get involved in a murder investigation...

****

Simonson, Helen.  The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club.  

Spending the summer of 1919 as a companion to a rich, elderly woman would be more enjoyable for Constance if she weren't worried about how she'd survive when summer ended. Then she meets Poppy, who scandalously wears trousers and drives a motorcycle...

A Small-Town City

by special guest Janice MacDonald.

 
This book is a strange wee beast, a combination of my first foray into writing mysteries and my latest, seventh puzzle with my amateur detective, Randy Craig, MA. The impetus was to bring that first, long unattainable adventure back into readers’ hands while at the same time giving them the heft and style of the series they had come to know. So, in the magical worlds of the mysterious, one plus seven equals six!

Sliding back into the world of The Next Margaret, that very first mystery, has hauled up a fair amount of nostalgia for me. Like Randy, I was back at university, doing an MA, after being out in the freelance world for four or five years. I was already living in the sweet apartment she later moved to within a cinnamon bun’s toss of the Highlevel Diner, but I made her suffer through the basement suite I had lived in during my second year of undergrad. Having researched and written a thesis on detective fiction for my MA, I figured I would try my hand at creating a reluctant amateur in the farceur style with the closed world of grad studies and TA-ing and sessional lecturing not as familiar to mystery readers already well versed in the academic novels of full professors and Oxford dons. In fact, one reviewer remarked that, “Randy Craig mysteries were like Amanda Cross for the untenured set.”

More than the puzzle, more than the charismatic detective, more than the grit or the laughs or the meanness of the streets depicted, what matters in a detective series is the location. In a formulaic genre, the bones of the book are already known, so it’s not that they’re reading for stunning plot structure. And while they need to identify with the detective and befriend him or her, they don’t necessarily want too much change in personality. So what it comes down to is that people read mysteries for an entry into a world with which they are not intimately familiar – and mystery novels take them to New Mexico, or Norway, or Watts in the late ‘50s, or post-Crimea War London. I thought, why not Edmonton?

The beauty of setting a novel here was that, up on the 53rd parallel, we were the most northerly major university city, with all the amenities of a large metropolis, yet a small town feel. We had a vibrant arts scene, a symphony, an opera company, amazing theatre, festivals galore, loads of intellectually stimulating people, grassroots blue collar grit, a glorious river valley and an ominous black bridge spanning half a mile. Running through the ravine system were deer, coyotes, the odd moose, cougars, even a bear was spotted the other day in Emily Murphy Park. And amazing as it seemed, relatively few people had ever heard of us.

They might have heard of us if they followed hockey, or if they were British and of a certain age, since all their sisters seemed to end up as Princess Patricia war brides. But they didn’t tend to read about us. We popped up from time to time in a quick chapter of a Dick Francis novel, a glancing reference in a Jeopardy question, a garrulous condemnation in Mordecai Richler magazine piece. The world was ready for Edmonton, and most particularly southside, campussy Edmonton. They would be lining up for Randy Craig Mysteries.

I quite honestly figured it would be a cakewalk. I would write a mystery series featuring a funny, mouthy brunette, set her in various milieus connected to the University of Alberta, and let her bring Edmonton to the world. After all, mystery readers crave new series. I know I do; I count myself right up there with obsessive readers the world over.

And the series does sell relatively well in Edmonton where people are sort of bemused to find their real street names in fiction. They sell even better all across North America now that people can buy them easily on e-readers. Adjunct lecturers love Randy, and so do librarians. And while there has been no British distribution deal, or TV producers with wheelbarrows full of cash so far, recognition does grow with every new adventure. Hudson’s Bay Company cartographer Peter Pond put Edmonton on the map. Randy Craig is satisfied with just sticking a small pin in it.

Still, with every new book comes more awareness, and even as I look back over thirty-seven years of writing and twenty-two years of Randy Craig in print, I am looking forward, as well, to think about what she might be getting up to as she moves firmly into middle-age. Not sure what number we’ll get to, she and I. But whatever happens, you just know that things won’t add up.

Janice MacDonald is the author of eleven books, including novels, non-­fiction titles, and a children's book. She has been widely anthologized, and her popular Randy Craig novels were the first mystery series set in Edmonton. Janice has taught English literature, communications, and creative writing at both the University of Alberta and Grant MacEwan College. She currently works for the the Government of Alberta. Born in Banff, Alberta, Janice lives and writes in Edmonton and considers herself to be a quintessential Albertan.

Mystery Monday

Another Margaret (Randy Craig mystery #7) by Janice MacDonald (Ravenstone Books trade paperback, 15 August 2015).

Randy's friend Denise coerces her to help with the planning of their 20-year grad school reunion at the University of Alberta.  Then, she happens to mention that a posthumous manuscript by Margaret Ahlers, the subject of Randy's MA thesis, had been found, which Randy asserts is impossible.

The concurrence of the two causes some reminiscence on Randy's part.

Twenty years earlier, she'd been living in Toronto, working rather successfully as a freelance writer. But it was becoming more and more difficult to find jobs, and searching for them was no longer fun.  Randy happened to read a debut novel by Margaret Ahlers which intrigued her so much that she wanted to learn more about the author.

This was just the trigger that was needed for Randy to explore her hidden aspiration to return to university.  Some consultation with  a friend in academia revealed that the sole expert on Ahlers, Dr. Hilary Quinn, was an associate professor at the University of Alberta, so that is where Randy enrolled.

We follow Randy's memories of arriving in Edmonton and her generally futile search for information about the reclusive author.  Dr. Quinn is uncooperative, and Randy's application to be her summer research assistant is denied.

After applying for all the RAs and grants she could find, Randy finally receives a small travel grant to visit the area where Ahlers' novels was set.  So, she rents a car, and off she goes to the Peace Country in Northern Alberta.

This was the part of the story that excited me most:  I spent my early teen years in that area, and we drove back and forth from Edmonton (the nearest large city) countless times.  I even pulled out my old road map of Alberta and followed Randy's travels, "seeing" many of the places she visited in my mind's eye.

While I love Janice MacDonald's mysteries, which are extremely well-constructed, my enjoyment of them is increased a million-fold because I know the settings so well. Of course, those who are not so familiar with Edmonton and points north will still enjoy her accomplished, literary prose.



The publisher has generously offered a copy to one of my readers.  Please comment below by 21:01 a.m. on Monday, October 5th, and don't forget to include an email address where I can contact you if you win.  There will be one winner in the U.S. and one winner in Canada, so please indicate which country you are in.


Many thanks to the publisher for sending me a galley for review purposes.

Welcome guest blogger Janice MacDonald!

Photo credit: Arif Kassam

How did Randy Craig come to be?

I had gone back to university to do an MA in English, with a focus on detective fiction and popular culture.

I remember quite clearly sitting in the grad lounge, reading some lovely trashy paperback novel like The Maltese Falcon or The Night The Gods Smiled, when some person up to their armpits in Chaucer and Derrida said, “So now I suppose you’re going to write a mystery novel, are you?” and I responded, “Yes, I suppose I am.” I had been out of school for a while, and had already written a couple of local history books and some radio plays at that time, but I don’t think till that moment happened, I had seriously considered writing a mystery series.

But, there I was -- committed. And they do say to write what you know. So the idea of a grad student coming back to do an MA, after having been out in the freelance world a while seemed a natural row to hoe. Randy’s return to academe had been because she had found a brand new writer to study and base her thesis on, but what about people who wanted to create an academic life around Shakespeare or Samuel Beckett? 

At just about that time, I had friends in Genetics who had been told their research was only going to net them M.Sc. degrees rather than Ph.D.s, because it was negative findings, and no journal would publish their work. Scientists all know that negative findings can be just as valuable as positive ones, but there is an element of a rat race in everything, right? So, the whole idea of looking at what people would do to make it in academe came about, and with that came the start of a series.

It had to be set in Edmonton. Nothing was set in Edmonton, and I figured we needed to correct that. I’d also done an interview of L.R. Wright who said she had really had to fight to get her series set in Sechelt, B.C. I just thought it was about time we owned up to existing. Detective fiction requires location to be a main feature of the work, too. Character and location is really what draws people back to a series time and again. It’s been a wonderful thing to become an ambassador for my city to the world, and readers here in Edmonton still find it fun to see their own streets becoming a bit “mean.”

Her name, Randy, is short for Miranda, of course, one of Shakespeare’s true naïfs, who has to learn who to trust and who not to trust in her “brave new world.” But another reason for the androgynous nickname was to fit into the tradition that was building in female detective fiction, which I had just been writing about in my thesis. With that either/or name or those initials, the reader can believe the character to be somewhat of a tomboy, and therefore probably better able to hold her own in a physical altercation. She also has the potential of getting the drop on someone once in a while, if they think they are coming to meet a man.

The trouble is, between the publication of my first and second book, I met and married a lovely man named Randy, which gets people who are just meeting us all confused for a bit. I am surrounded by Randys now. 

And I wouldn’t have it any other way!



Janice MacDonald lives in Edmonton.  She writes for the government during the week and mystery novels on weekends.

The Roar of the Crowd is part of The Deadly Medley Sweepstakes at Criminal Element!  For your chance to win — and to learn more about the latest and greatest in crime fiction — just click here before February 17.