Lowcountry Boondoggle (A Liz Talbot Mystery Book Nine)

Charleston is one of my favorite Cities, so naturally, Stella Mars would be one of my favorite fictional Islands off the Coast of it. This is the ninth book and I highly recommend it. We find out more about the former murder in Book Eight and the relationship between Nick and Liz. This series of Books has won a couple of awards, which shows shows you the high standard of Boyer, and the wonderful way you can walk all the streets and see charming buildings and delicious food. The Mystery is first rate....giving it five stars.

Blurb:

Private investigators Liz Talbot and Nate Andrews thought they’d put Darius Baker’s troubles to rest—then his recently discovered son ropes him into a hemp farm investment with his college buddies. When a beloved Charleston professor—and potential investor—is murdered, Liz and Nate discover Darius keeps the PIs on speed dial.

A shocking number of people had reasons to want the genteel, bowtie wearing, tea-drinking professor dead. Was it one of his many girlfriends or a disgruntled student? Or perhaps Murray was killed because his failure to invest meant the hemp farm trio’s dreams were going up in smoke?

Though Liz’s long-dead best friend, Colleen, warns her the stakes are far higher than Liz imagines, she is hellbent on finding the no-good killer among the bevy of suspects. But will the price of justice be more than Liz can bear?

Take a virtual vacation to Charleston in Susan M. Boyer’s latest Southern charmer, Lowcountry Boondoggle. It’s a trip you don’t want to miss.

Script for Scandal (A Lilian Frost and Edith Head mystery Book 3) by Renee Patrick

Patrick has written all the modern day effects of Film Noir, with its snappy dialogue and hints of Hollywood, in this Mystery. The friendship between Lillian and Edith Head continues in Book Three. However, the story mostly focuses on Lillian's relationship with an LAPD boyfriend, who cannily resembles a character in a Grade B Manuscript, about to be published. That Officer planned a robbery and managed to get his friend killed and then became involved with the friend's wife in the script. This is a real scandal that has hung over Gene Morrow, so did the script fit? I think I could have followed a lot better if I had read Book One and Two which I recommend you do. But the expressions of the time frame are just "swell."

I like film noirs with a lot of mystery and characters. So, the book was right up my alley, with another suspicious death adding to the background. This won't be to everyone's taste but the tidbits fed you of stars and the back production works of movies, will make it palatable. Certainly, the lines fed to Starlets with growing aspirations read well...just like in the Movies.

Blurb:

1939, Los Angeles. Lillian Frost is shocked when her friend, glamorous costume designer Edith Head, hands her the script to a new film that's about to start shooting. Streetlight Story is based on a true crime: the California Republic bank robbery of 1936. Lillian's beau, LAPD detective Gene Morrow, was one of the officers on the case; his partner, Teddy, was tragically shot dead.


It seems the scriptwriter has put Gene at the centre of a scandal, twisting fact with fiction - or has he? With Gene reluctant to talk about the case, the movie quickly becoming the hottest ticket in town, a suspicious death on the Paramount studio lot and the police reopening the investigation into Teddy's death, Lillian is determined to find answers. Can Lillian and Edith uncover the truth of what happened that fateful day and clear Gene's name?

Shredding The Evidence ( A Cookbook Nook Mystery 9) by Daryl Wood Gerber

Daryl Wood Gerber writes a delicious, food mystery, loaded with fun characters, and with a California Twist.  The Food Bowl is one of the big events of Chrystal Cove, with a lot of exotic, delicious, food and a bevy of Chefs when murder comes calling. A food Critic has been causing problems for Tito, Bailey's Husband and has been found dead. Bailey works for Jenna Hart and once again- Jenna finds herself in the midst of a murder investigation. Gerber provides a list of the characters so you can jump right in to enjoy the mystery without having read previous Books.

This ninth mystery bring us up to date with our group of  book friends. The descriptions of the town along with mouth- watering food and recipes are a huge part of the fun. I enjoy the little tidbits of jogging, tarot reading, and the titles of cook books. I can imagine how fun it would be to live in a town like this with all the little shops and multi-generational friends and relatives. If you enjoy food mysteries then you will certainly like the warmth of Gerber's writing. 


Blurb:

The Agatha Award–winning author of Sifting Through Clues returns to the Cookbook Nook, where a combative food reporter gets her just deserts . . .

The denizens of Crystal Cove are salivating over the upcoming Food Bowl Week, when local chefs offer some of their best and most imaginative creations in bite-size portions all over town. Bookstore proprietor Jenna Hart is hungry to sample as many of the delicacies as she can, but when she stumbles onto the dead body of a local food reporter and learns that her best friend’s husband is the primary suspect, she’ll have to summon the appetite for a side dish of sleuthing to prove his innocence.

Jenna knows the ambitious and aggressive reporter, who was strangled at a fitness center with her shredded restaurant reviews scattered around her, left behind a long list of potential suspects. As she begins piecing together the scant clues, she uncovers illicit ties between the victim and a local newspaper owner, a spurned would-be lover, and a host of disgruntled restaurant owners not a bit torn up by the critical reporter’s demise. And with a solution so close she can almost taste it, Jenna turns up the heat on the culprit, realizing too late that she’s the next course on the murderer’s menu . . .

Includes tasty recipes!

He'd Rather Be Dead (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery) by George Bellairs

 George Bellairs published,"He'd Rather Be Dead," in 1945. Readers learn more about Inspector Littlejohn's method of tracking down a murderer and his gentle persistence as he checks alibi's and past lives. The holiday town holds many, dark secrets and the Residents would rather Littlejohn not know of the graft and politics that endure. Bellairs always has a dab hand in describing the people and the background in his books. It is one of the things that makes reading him so enjoyable.

WWII in Europe is going on when this Mystery is written, so that makes it particularly interesting to me. I love the Carnival atmosphere and the sidekick the Inspector inherits in Inspector Harvester. The social imbalance is of interest because England was definitely based on a class system much sterner and stricter than ours. Bellairs makes great reading if you are interested in building the background, as well as the characters. I am... so, he has become one of my favorite Authors.  Murder once started is hard to control though... will there be more?

Blurb:

The mayor of Westcome, Sir Gideon Ware, has a speciality for painting a target on his own back. Most recently, he has gained numerous enemies for transforming the quaint harbour town into a sprawling, manmade boardwalk through a series of bribes, blackmail, and backhand deals.

So when Sir Gideon Ware dies at his annual luncheon, it’s no surprise that foul play is suspected.

Inspector Littlejohn is brought in to investigate the murder, but with so many motives to sort through, the suspect list is endless. And with the Chief Constable covering up critical clues at every turn, Littlejohn is left on his own to get to the bottom of Ware’s murder.

But when a second body is found, Littlejohn’s investigation gets put on a fatal timer.

Evil By The Sea (A By the Sea Mystery Book Four) by Kathleen Bridge

Kathleen Bridge writes a Community of People we all would love to know. Liz Holt has moved home to the Indiatlantic Inn, which is a Hotel and Emporium, in Melbourne Beach, Florida that her Family owns. Dorian Starwood, with hair that contains glittery strands of metallic green, pink, and gold has been her Aunt's Psychic for over twenty years and now she is having a second, small, wedding.The Groom is Wiccan Leader, Julian Rhodes. Liz's Aunt is a double for Esmeralda in Bewitched including eye liner and curls. During the Mystical Merafest, tents are set up for Sirens by the Sea, Delicacies By the Sea, and many others but there is Murder afoot. Liz had better get busy before she ends up as the next body.

This is a lovely trip to quirky characters, psychics, incense, and a fabulous cast of characters. If I hadn't run into some of these people in Florida I might think I was in the 1970's. It makes me want to get out my beads, wear patchouli and join them. But with murder, delicious food, beautiful vistas, creative characters, a Parrot and a Ferret - the understated humor is a winner for this Mystery. Five Stars 

Blurb:

Liz Holt is bewitched, bothered, and bewildered when a wicked killer objects to a wiccan wedding . . .   

Island life can get pretty weird. Wiccan weddings, psychic brides, mermaid parades, eccentric parrots . . . Novelist Liz Holt has gotten used to it since moving back to the barrier island of Melbourne Beach, Florida, and once again working in her family's hotel and emporium, the Indialantic by the Sea. But one thing she'll never get used to is murder.

Groom-to-be and leader of the Sunshine Wiccan Society, white warlock Julian Rhodes is poisoned at his rehearsal dinner on the hotel's sightseeing cruiser. His psychic bride, Dorian Starwood, never saw it coming. An old friend of Liz's great-aunt Amelia, the celebrity psychic engages Liz to find out who intended to kill her intended. With her Macaw, Barnacle Bob, squawking "Pop Goes the Weasel" at Dorian's pet ferret, and the streets teeming with mermaids in tails, Liz has got to wade through the weirdness and cast a wide net for the killer—before she's the next one to sleep with the fishes . . .
 

Murder to Music by Margaret Newman

Margaret Newman wrote Murder to Music in 1959 as her first mystery novel. She was a prolific writer and many of her other books are published under Anne Betteridge, Margaret Potter or  Anne Melville, in which she wrote historical novels. In this mystery Detective Superintendent Simon Hudson is dating Delia Jones, and gives her a ride to a London Choral Society Meeting. The meetings are fraught with  conflict due to the Assistant Conductor, Owen Burr. He is a man who is musically talented but causes people to dislike him intensely.

The characters are a nice touch by Newman. They are very English and have gone through World War II. She has elderly women who have devoted their lives to the Chamber, ambitious young men- very talented, and two sets of couples to add romance. On the night of one of their most ambitious programs, who would ever have predicted murder? The setting is tight but I found some of the lesser characters more developed than Supt. Hudson, which did not make the mystery less interesting because the red herrings flew fast and furious. The end was a surprise to me. Four stars

Blurb:

You must have a curious taste, to love someone whom you believe to be capable of murder.’

Detective Superintendent Simon Hudson finds himself in a difficult position. Attending the Metropolitana Choir’s concert was intended to make him a supportive partner… not the head of a murder investigation. But when the conductor drops dead during the performance, Hudson winds up with a shocking list of suspects – including his girlfriend.

Unable to keep his professional and personal lives separate, Hudson finds himself embroiled in the peculiar hatreds and spiteful grudges that dominate the Metro’s managing committee. Desperate to ensure his girlfriend’s innocence, Hudson must work quickly to bring the murderer to light before it’s too late.

This melodic murder mystery, brimming with charm and wit, was first published in 1959 and was Margaret Newman’s first novel.

Murder to Music is also part of Agora Books' Uncrowned Queens of Crime series.

A Stroke of Malice (A Lady Darby Mystery Book Eight) by Anna Lee Huber

Book Eight of the Lady Darby Series has the happy couple attending a Twelfth Night Event at the Duchess of Bowmont's Castle. The elite gathering, started earlier in the day with the heralding of Trumpets while each guest drew a role to play at the Event. The evening revelry soon descends into drunkenness and fissures appear beneath the jibing, prompting Lord Edward to do a ghost tour. The guests all are led into the basement with its damp, cold and rats. But the real terror lies in the catacombs under Kirkbryde Abbey and joined at the very far corner of the Castle by an opening in the stonework. Led deeper into the underground of gray stonework, and the ghost of a monk, the story takes a bizarre twist for the guests. Who is the new body placed there... that met such violence, for the the face has been chewed by Rats. Kiera, Lady Darby decides to help the family and pursue a murderer.

I had these books recommended to me by a friend, who devoured them. I can see why... Anna Lee Huber writes with a deft touch and very eerie overtones. Who could resist all the elements of the aristocracy during the 1830's?  The parties, costumes, love affairs and as an added spice- murder, start the book in the first four chapters. The tension builds as Lady Darby and her Husband Sebastian Gage track a murderer? This story has all the makings of the great Gothics of the 1970's. Who could resist unknown corpses, rats, underground catacombs, suspicious characters, and a tense build-up leading to the last page?

Blurb:

Lady Kiera Darby and her husband Sebastian Gage are looking forward to celebrating with new friends at an exciting yearly soiree, but they soon learn that murder never takes a holiday in the latest riveting installment in this national bestselling series.

January 1832. After enjoying a delightful few weeks with her family, expectant mother Kiera and Sebastian Gage have been invited to the Duchess of Bowmontʼs Twelfth Night party in Traquair, Scotland. Though she normally avoids such fashionable, rambunctious events, Kiera is ready to join in the festive merrymaking. But upon their arrival at the opulent estate, it becomes obvious that all is not merry in their hostess’s home. The family appears to be under a great strain, and someone seems determined to cause mayhem among the guests with a series of forged notes.

Matters swiftly turn from irksome to downright deadly when the partygoers stumble upon a decomposing body in the castleʼs crypt. The corpse is thought to be the duchessʼs son-in-law who had purportedly traveled to Paris more than a month earlier. It is evident the man met with foul play, and Kiera and Gage soon realize that a ruthless murderer walks among them—and may well be a member of the duchessʼs own family. And when the investigation takes a treacherous turn, Kiera discovers just how deep the killer is willing to dig to keep their secrets from ever seeing the light of day.