Since I enjoyed Jeff Cohen’s The Question of the Missing Head, I thought I’d check out another comedy mystery he’d written. Some Like It Hot-Buttered is the first of three in the “Comedy Tonight” series, named after the theater the protagonist runs that only shows comedies. (The other two are It Happened One Knife and A Night at the Operation.) It’s the story of Elliot Freed, a divorced Jersey guy who wrote a book that became a bad movie. He […]

Calling The Question of the Missing Head “an Asperger’s Mystery” might seem trendy, but the approach works very well. I loved reading it. Samuel has Asperger’s Syndrome. He’s not embarrassed by it; he considers it a “personality trait” instead of a disorder. He has opened a storefront called Questions Answered in the hope of being challenged by unusual questions, which suits his talents. There he meets former newspaper photographer Mrs. Washburn, who quickly falls into a useful role as his […]

I stumbled across a mystery series (in the cozy tradition) that I’ve been enjoying, in part because these books by Kathleen Ernst point out cool aspects of Wisconsin history and heritage. Chloe Ellefson is a curator who, in Old World Murder, has just moved to work at Old World Wisconsin, a living history recreation site, to escape some bad memories and a broken relationship. As she learns more about the artifacts collected at the site, she also gets involved in […]