Alphabetical Index of Mystery Reviews

Recipes for Murder: 66 Dishes That Celebrate the Mysteries of Agatha Christie

What a brilliant idea! Not only are the dishes in Karen Pierce’s Recipes for Murder: 66 Dishes That Celebrate the Mysteries of Agatha Christie inspired by the great writer’s novels, they’re also chosen with awareness of the year the book was published. That means techniques and dishes dating from the appropriate period, which also makes this cookbook something of a social history. The author aims to consider “how Christie uses food in her novels, whether to advance plots or define […]

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The Dog Sitter Detective

If you know Antony Johnston’s name, it’s probably because he created the graphic novel that became Atomic Blonde. I know his work best from the excellent, forgotten science-fiction comic series The Fuse. But it turns out he also writes a wonderful cozy mystery novel! The Dog Sitter Detective was a fun read I really enjoyed. The middle-aged Gwinny gave up her acting career ten years ago to take care of her father. Now he’s passed… and there’s no money left, […]

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Public Anchovy #1

I enjoyed the third in the Deep Dish Mystery series by Mindy Quigley, Public Anchovy #1, the most so far — because it involved a mixed group of people, some unpleasant, trapped in a mansion overnight. That’s a genre trope that makes it easy to combine drama and mystery and suspense, and the result is a page-turner. The series stars Delilah, a chef who runs a gourmet pizzeria in a Wisconsin lake resort town. The first book, Six Feet Deep […]

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Canine Detective Chris Volume 1: The Shiba Inu Detective Tracks Down the Stolen Jewels!

I at first thought Canine Detective Chris Volume 1: The Shiba Inu Detective Tracks Down the Stolen Jewels! was a manga, given the cute cover. I was wrong — it’s a light novel, an easy read aimed at kids with a double handful of illustrations. It’s written by Tomoko Tabe, illustrated by KeG, and translated by Stephen Paul. Chris (nicknamed from Christie, after the author) has to retire as a police dog. He was stung on the nose by a […]

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Death by Silver

Being a Sherlock Holmes fan means I read a lot of things I wouldn’t otherwise just for the loosest connection. Such as Death by Silver by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold. I don’t normally read fantasy, as I have plenty of mysteries and comics to catch up on, but the idea of two men with a troubled friendship trying to solve a murder in an Edwardian London where magic works was intriguing. Ned is an officially recognized metaphysician, trying to […]

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Sherlock Holmes: The Spider’s Web

Who would have thought mixing a traditional Sherlock Holmes pastiche with Oscar Wilde’s characters would work so well? Philip Purser-Hallard, that’s who. I picked up Sherlock Holmes: The Spider’s Web because I’d read and enjoyed some of Purser-Hallard’s writings on Doctor Who. I was pleasantly surprised to find an authentic-feeling novel with quite the deductions. Then a body is found at the Moncrieff house during a ball, and in wanders the cast of The Importance of Being Earnest. It’s all […]

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Sherlock & Watson Wired and Re-Wired

The “Text Me Mystery” series brings the classic characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson into the modern era by re-telling Arthur Conan Doyle’s mystery stories via text messaging. There are two books out so far, Sherlock & Watson Wired and Sherlock & Watson Re-Wired, rewritten by Ann Kimbrough. Somehow, Holmes and Watson have randomly ended up in a chat thread with four modern-day teens. The kids are bored, so in Wired, Watson begins telling them “The Adventure of […]

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The Fatal Folio

I was so impressed by The Fatal Folio, third in the Cambridge Bookshop mystery series by Elizabeth Penney, that I went back and read the first two. The series began with Chapter and Curse and continued with A Treacherous Tale. They’re great cozy mysteries, particularly for Anglophiles. Molly Kimball and her mother move from Vermont to Cambridge, England, after the death of her father and to help her aunt run a family bookshop, one of the oldest in the city. […]

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