by Sunny Frazier

Martha Rose is part of a close-knit quilting circle in the San Fernando Valley of California. The newest member has an eye for couture. But when his fingerprints are found at the crime scene where the body of a fellow quilter is found, he is the #1 suspect. Martha sets out to clear her friend but finds the victim had ties to stolen millions. Knot What You Think is the fifth adventure of the Quilty Tuesdays group created by Mary Marks.

Jill Gardner is still getting used to living with her boyfriend but doesn’t stop her from a weekend at South Cove, California’s fancy resort. The boyfriend parties it up with his buds while Jill chooses to pamper herself. The party stops when the future groom is found doing the dead-man’s float in the pool. Jill has to find the killer before her boyfriend is next in the drowning pool. This is author Lynn Cahoon’s version of A Killer Party, ninth in the Tourist Trap mysteries.

It’s the Wrong Side of the Paw in the sixth Bookmobile Cat series by Laurie Cass. Librarian Minnie Hamilton and rescue cat Eddie bring books to the people in the hills of Chilson, Michigan. The mischievous feline risks one of his nine lives when he escapes and jumps into the bed of a pickup truck. Unfortunately, a corpse is already occupying the space. The lawyer who owns the truck is the number one suspect. But Minnie and Eddie believe otherwise and intend to sniff out the killer.

Meanwhile, in Lovett, Michigan, farmer’s daughter and blogger Shelby McDonald is submitting her jams and jellies, produced at Love Blossom Farm, into the county fair competition. The town loves the hayrides, tractor pulls, and cotton candy, but the highlight is watching one of the volunteer firemen use the Jaws of Life to “rescue” the dummy inside. But the dummy is his very dead adversary, and police already suspect him. He’s her neighbor and Shelby knows she needs to weed out the real killer. Sowed to Death is the second in the Farmers Daughter series penned by Peg Cochran.

You have Muffin to Fear in the fifth Merry Muffin Mystery by Victoria Hamilton. Baker Merry Wynter of Autumn Vale, NY, is on her honeymoon when her friend invites a ghost-hunting crew from the show Haunt Hunt to Wynter Castle. When Merry comes home to this, she realizes the crew squabbles and feuds. It gets worse when the show’s psychics say they have contact with people murdered on the property. If it wasn’t true before, it is now as two crew members are found dead. Delicious recipes included.

It’s Lions and Tigers and Murder, Oh My and we’re not in Kansas but in Shadow Bend, Missouri. Devereaux Sinclair runs a dime store in the rural town and a private investigator rents office space on the second floor. Now she’s caught up in his first case. A rich philanthropist wants to open a wildlife park, but everyone is opposed, including his wife. When she goes missing, authorities suspect the husband. This is the sixth Devereaux’s Dime Store mystery by Denise Swanson.

Now for a bit of 19th century history with Alyssa Maxwell’s Gilded Newport mystery #5. It’s Murder at Chateau Sur Mer in Newport, Rhode Island (Personal note: I was stationed in gorgeous Newport in the Navy and have toured many of the mansions). The mansions are the summer houses for the rich and famous, such as the Vanderbilts. Their cousin and society reporter Emma Cross is covering fashion at a polo match when a gaudy-dressed woman starts screaming she wants to speak to the senator’s wife. The police escort her off the grounds. The next day the senator’s wife asks to see Emma at the Chateau. Lying at the foot of the grand staircase is the stranger from the polo match. To avoid scandal, the wife asks Emma to investigate. When she finds out the victim was a prostitute and pregnant, she suspects the senator was being blackmailed.

Sunny Frazier worked with an undercover narcotics team in Fresno County for 17 years before turning her energies to writing the Christy Bristol Astrology Mysteries. Based in the San Joaquin Valley of California, the novels are inspired by real cases and 35 years of casting horoscopes.

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