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).

Mystery Monday (& a giveaway!)

 

An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell #6) by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley hardcover, 2 March 2021).

January 1889.

Veronica and Stoker have been helping the Curiosity Club (an elite Society of unconventional and adventurous women) curate an exhibition honoring Alice Baker-Greene, a member who had died while mountain-climbing.

When Stoker notices that the ropes Alice used appear to have been deliberately cut, they hide the evidence while deciding what to do about it, but before they can take action, the ropes are stolen.

Meanwhile, the Princess of Alpenwald, a patron of the exhibit, disappears.  Since she is scheduled to attend some state functions, a doppelganger is needed.  That replacement is Veronica, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the princess.

This provides the perfect opportunity for the Veronica and Stoker to investigate what they are certain is the murder of their friend.

Of course, complications ensue, and Veronica's life is endangered.

An Unexpected Peril is thoroughly entertaining.  We learn more about the backgrounds of both Veronica and her paramour, and the ending provides satisfactory closure.

Thanks to the publisher, I have a finished hardcover copy to give away.  Please comment on this post to enter.  Entries from the U.S. only, please.

Mystery Monday

There are several new cozy mystery series being released in the next few months.  Here are a few that sound intriguing to me.

Al Dente's Inferno (Tuscan Cooking School #1) by Stephanie Cole (Berkley mass market, 25 February 2020).

When Nell Valenti is offered a chance to move to Tuscany to help transform an aging villa into a farm-to-table cooking school, she eagerly accepts. After all, both her job and her love life in America have been feeling stale. Plus, she'll get the chance to work under the acclaimed Italian Chef Claudio Orlandini.

But Nell gets more than she bargained for when she arrives. With only a day to go until the launch dinner for the cooking school, the villa is in shambles, and Chef O is blissfully oblivious of the work that needs to be done before a group of local dignitaries arrive, along with a filmmaker sent to showcase and advertise the new school. The situation only worsens when Nell discovers that the filmmaker is an ex-boyfriend, and he’s found murdered later that night. Even worse, Chef O has disappeared, and accusations of murder could shut the school down for good.

As tensions reach a boiling point at the villa, Nell must throw her chef's hat into the ring, and investigate the murder herself. Because if she fails to solve the case, her career, or even her life, could be next on the chopping block.

******

Statue of Limitations (Goddess of Greene Street #1) by Kate Collins (Kensington mass market, 28 January 2020).

After her divorce, Athena Spencer  returned to coastal Michigan to work in her family’s garden center and raise her son, while also caring for a mischievous wild raccoon and fending off her family’s annoying talent for nagging. Working alone at the garden center one night, Athena is startled by a handsome stranger who claims to be the rightful owner of a valuable statue her grandfather purchased at a recent estate sale.

But she has even bigger problems on her plate. The powerful Talbot family from whom her pappoús bought the statue is threatening to raze the shops on Greene Street’s “Little Greece” to make way for a condo. The recent death of the family’s patriarch already seemed suspicious, but now it’s clear that a murderer is in their midst. Athena will have to live up to her warrior goddess namesake to protect her family from a killer and save their community from ruin . . .

*****

Here Comes the Body (Catering Hall #1) by Maria DiRico (Kensington mass market, 25 February 2020).

After her philandering husband’s boat went down, newly single Mia Carina went back to Astoria, the bustling Queens neighborhood of her youth. Living with her nonna and her oversized cat, Doorstop, she’s got a whole new life—including some amateur sleuthing . . .

Mia is starting work at Belle View, her father’s catering hall, a popular spot for weddings, office parties, and more—despite the planes that occasionally roar overhead on their way to LaGuardia and rattle the crystal chandelier. Soon she’s planning a bachelor party for a less-than-gentlemanly groom. But it goes awry when the gigantic cake is wheeled in and a deadly surprise is revealed . . .

Since some of her family’s associates are on the shady side, the NYPD wastes no time in casting suspicion on Mia’s father. Now, Mia’s going to have to use all her street smarts to keep him out of Rikers Island . . .

*****

My Fair Latte (Cafe Cinema #1) by Vicki Fee (Henery Press trade pb, 3 March 2020).

Broke, unemployed barista Halley Greer is shocked when she inherits an Art Deco movie palace from the great uncle she remembers meeting once as a child. She moves to the charming tourist town of Utopia Springs, Arkansas to claim her legacy.

In addition to the timeworn theater, she discovers she's also inherited a trash-heaped apartment, family secrets, her uncle's friends, a stealthy calico kitty--and an adversary.

With a whole latte help from her new friends, the feisty barista fixes up and re-opens the theater as a coffee and wine bar, showing classic films. She generates some steam with a hunky local--and risks getting burned. The opening night of My Fair Lady looks like a big hit, and her new life feels like a bit of movie magic, until a customer turns up dead during intermission.

With the cops eyeing her as a suspect, Halley digs into the victim's life and runs into a tangle of blackmail and secrets. Can Halley and her friends unmask a killer before the curtain comes down for keeps?