by Sandra Murphy & Miranda James

This week we are reviewing the latest Cat in the Stacks mystery by Miranda aka Dean James, and we also have a fun guest post from Miranda about writing cozies. Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of the book and a link to purchase the book from Amazon.

Requiem for a Mouse by Miranda James
Review by Sandra Murphy

Charlie and his Maine coon cat have a new helper at the library. Tara Martin is an odd person. She rarely makes eye contact and has no tact. She blurts out whatever comes to mind without a thought as to how it sounds to the recipient. For example, she told Charlie’s co-worker, Melba, that the green dress she wore made her look like a cucumber. The remark was not well received. Melba does not put up with such foolishness.

An incident where Tara stomps her cell phone to pieces leaves both Charlie and Melba puzzled. At a party where Tara is part of the catering crew as one of her part-time jobs, she suddenly vanishes, only to be found in the root cellar. She claims she had a panic attack due to the large crowd. Charlie finds out Tara has given each of her employers a different address but lives at none of them, adding to the confusion. When Tara is the victim of a hit-and-run, Charlie tries to discover more about her. With strangers dropping by the office to see her, snatch-and-grab cell phone thefts, and a mysterious stranger in town, Charlie can’t see a way for all the pieces to fit together.

Of course, he can’t concentrate all of his attention on Tara. There’s his job to consider, his cats, Diesel and Ramses, and his much anticipated wedding to Helen Louise. She’ll join his household which includes two boarders (a couple) and Azalea Berry, who is in charge of cooking and cleaning—good at both but her meals are the best. She’s also the mother of Kanesha Berry, the police officer who handles the bigger cases. It will be an adjustment to blend both households.

Charlie may look like just a mild-mannered librarian, but in reality, he’s a mild-mannered librarian with an itch for the truth. He loves to solve the puzzle of a crime and much of his information is based on his instincts about people—mainly because Kanesha Berry won’t share facts of the case. The characters are people you’d not only like to know but you would feel right at home with them. It’s more of a visit with an old friend than a book to read.

This is book 16 in the series, many reviewed in KRL. James also writes the spin-off series, the Southern Ladies Mysteries about the D’Cote sisters who are the local ‘royalty’ because of their wealth and influence. I hope to see another book about them soon—and of course, I’m looking forward to Charlie and Helen Louise’s wedding.

Sandra Murphy lives in the shadow of the Arch in St. Louis Missouri. She’s the editor for the upcoming Yeet Me in St Louis, an anthology with stories from twelve St. Louis writers. Her own short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mystery Magazine, and anthologies such as The Perp Wore Pumpkin and I (Almost) Died in Your Arms. ‘Lucy’s Tree’, published in The Eyes of Texas, won a Derringer Award from the Short Mystery Fiction Society. She lives in St. Louis with Ozzie the Westie Impersonator and his sidekick in crime, Louie the Cat.

No Sex Please, We’re Cozy
by Miranda James

One of the hallmarks of mysteries on the cozier side is the lack of in-your-face violence and gore. Another is the conspicuous absence of explicit sex. Cozy writers leave that kind of thing to the hardboiled and noir crowd and to the romance writers.

Does the lack of sex scenes mean that characters in genteel mysteries have no passion, no romance, no “inner fires”? Of course not.

Dean/Miranda James

Cozy readers aren’t interested in the mechanics of who does what to whom in the bedroom in the pages of a mystery novel, but these same readers are generally happy when the main character in a series has an actual or potential romantic interest. Love is a basic human emotion, and cozy sleuths aren’t the alienated loners so prevalent in hardboiled and noir fiction. They actually understand how to make an emotional connection with another person and carry on a relationship.

The genteel mystery is all about the sense of community and the ability of the characters to get along with one another. When one of those relationships goes awry, murder happens, and the main characters struggle to bring back a sense of order and community, not only in the larger sense but on a personal level as well.

The focus is the relationship and its nuances. If the reader is in the bedroom watching who does what to whom, frankly the nuances can fade rapidly away. The anticipation, the tension, have gone flat. Maybe I’m terribly old-fashioned, but I liked movies much better when there was romance and sexual tension, not to mention comedy. Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby or Grant and Irene Dunne in The Awful Truth are two of my favorite examples.

Mystery readers are well-equipped with imagination, and writers don’t have to spell out everything in a cozy novel. Particularly when it comes to sex. Amelia and Emerson are entitled to their privacy, after all. So are Charlie Harris and Helen Louise Brady. So I’ll never write a sex scene in my series.

You can click here to purchase this book from Amazon.

To enter to win a copy of Requiem for a Mouse, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “Requiem” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen August 17, 2024. U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter. If entering via email please include your mailing address in case you win. 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. Also listen to our new mystery podcast where mystery short stories and first chapters are read by actors! They are also available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify.

Miranda James is the NYTimes and USA Today bestselling author of the Cat in the Stacks and the Southern Ladies mysteries. Miranda lives near Jackson, MS, in a house overflowing with two books. Four cats also live there and make sure Miranda toes the line when it’s feeding time.

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases. KRL also receives free copies of most of the books that it reviews, that are provided in exchange for an honest review of the book.