by Sunny Frazier

Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win an ebook copy of Mrs. Odboddy’s Desperate Doings by Elaine Faber, mentioned in a past Coming Attractions column.

It’s too hot to go outside, so why not grab a book, ice tea, and a comfy place to read. Here are a few suggestions:

Laurien Berenson is starting a new Senior Sleuths series, an off-shoot of her Melanie Travis Canine mysteries. Peg Turnbull and Rose Donovan have spent forty years bickering. Now they are partnering up to join a bridge club. But when the top player is killed, they discover members are playing a different game involving gambling, cheating, and adultery. Peg and Rose Solve a Murder but are playing a dangerous hand.

Florrie Fox owns Color Me Read, a bookstore in D.C. She also creates adult coloring books. The wedding of her boss has a mixed group of attendees: a failing author and the critic who wrote a vicious review, an ex-FBI thriller writer and his female fans, an unsuccessful romance writer, and a waitress who wants a career in journalism. So, who killed an aspiring writer during the festivities? It’s A Colorful Scheme, the fourth Pen & Ink Mystery by Krista Davis.

Donna Andrews’ books are always for the birds. This time it’s peacocks. When Meg Langslow’s techy nephew works with a podcast on cold cases and unsolved crimes in Virginia, one of the podcasters has a close call with death, but it might not be an accident. The nephew goes to his aunt and asks her to investigate. She’s already got her hands full planning a wedding but can’t help wondering if this has anything to do with the disappearance twenty years ago of a musician on the brink of stardom. Time to Round Up the Usual Peacocks in the thirty-first Meg Langslow Mystery Series.

Traveling to Key West, we find food critic Hayley Snow having lunch with a friend when she realizes her husband’s dog, Ziggy, has disappeared. Following his barking, she discovers him digging up a body in a shallow grave. It’s a local birdwatcher who was a rabble-rouser, womanizer, and refused to follow the town’s rules. While helping to cater the memorial service, Hayley discovers clues in a vintage cookbook. Lucy Burdette gives us A Dish to Die For in the twelfth book in the Key West Critic Mysteries.

It was A Dark and Stormy Tea in Charleston, North Carolina. Nevertheless, Theodosia Browning is taking a walk. She sees two people locked in a weird hug before she realizes she’s just witnessed the murder of a friend’s daughter. When asked to investigate, Theo finds several possible suspects: the boyfriend, a real estate developer, a private security man, a reporter, and a neighbor writing a true crime book. This twenty-fourth Tea Shop Mystery by Laura Childs comes with recipes from the Indigo Tea Shop along with tea tips.

BEST OF THE REST

Amanda Flower—Peanut Butter Panic Amish Candy Shop Mystery Series #8

Alyssa Maxwell—Murder at Beacon Rock Gilded Newport Mystery Series #10

Willian Kent Kruger—Fox Creek Cork O’Connor Mystery Series #19

Anna Lee Huber—A Certain Darkness Verity Kent Mysteries #6

Nicola Upson—Dear Little Corpses Josephine Tey Mystery Series #10

Faye Kellerman—The Hunt Decker & Lazarus Mystery Series #27

Edited by Donna Andrews, Marcia Talley, & Barb Goffman-Chesapeake Crimes: Magic is Murder

To enter to win an ebook copy of Mrs. Odboddy’s Desperate Doings by Elaine Faber, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “odboddy” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen August 6, 2022. U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & mystery short stories in our mystery section. And join our mystery Facebook group to keep up with everything mystery we post, and have a chance at some extra giveaways. Be sure to check out our new mystery podcast too with mystery short stories, and first chapters read by local actors. A new episode went up this week.

Or click on this link to take you to Mysterious Galaxy’s website where you can purchase any of these books & a portion will go to help support KRL:

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.

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases.