by Sunny Frazier

Details at the end of this point on how to enter to win a copy of Bite Club by Laurien Berenson, featured in a past Coming Attractions.

Learning never ends, and libraries and bookstores are your best friend. This month I’m highlighting five mysteries set in these places, and some are haunted or bewitched. Also, check out two new series.

From Ann Cleeves comes the new Two Rivers Mystery series. In North Devon, where two rivers converge and run to the sea, Detective Matthew Venn has been estranged from his strict religious community. Attending his father’s funeral, he gets a call of a body found on a nearby beach. The victim has an albatross tattooed across his neck. The Long Call pulls Matthew back into a world he thought he’d left behind.

Another start of a new series is the Agatha Bright Mysteries by Elise Sax. Living in a haunted lighthouse with two elderly aunts and running a bookstore/soup shop on the beach, Agatha is happy with life in Sea Breeze, California. A missing woman brings a detective to town, and Agatha’s soup comes under suspicion. The woman was murdered and Agatha has to solve the case before she winds up behind bars. The Fear Hunter brings in characters from two other series by the author, The Matchmaker series and the Goodnight Mysteries.

There’s No Crones About It in the second Spell’s Angels Cozy by Amanda M. Lee. Scout Randall is in the Spell’s Angels motorcycle club in Hawthorne Hollow, Michigan. She’s involved with a “shifter” whose dad is Chief of Police. When another gang returns to town and a homeless man is found dead with “Scout” carved on his body, she knows she’s being set up. Turns out Scout is related to the man, although she was abandoned as a child. Before she can start uncovering the secret, one of the Spell’s Angels is taken by the rival gang. Now Scout has to pull out all her magic.

We get Buried in the Stacks in the third installation of Allison Brook’s Haunted Library series. Carrie Singleton is the librarian where her aunt’s ghost resides. In winter she makes the building in Clover Ridge, Connecticut, a refuge for the homeless. Another group is planning a daytime haven, and Carrie volunteers the library as a meeting place. While visiting a friend in the hospital, Carrie discovers the woman’s husband killed her aunt six years ago. Her friend is then run over after she leaves the hospital. Turns out she was blackmailing neighbors and colleagues. Carrie, her ghostly aunt and cat Smoky Joe are on the case, but are the cards stacked against her?

Handling rare books is second nature in Aurora (Rory) Hawthorne’s family in Ivory Beach. During tourist season a stranger returns a rare book to the enchanted library and then is found dead. A fellow witch is willing to use magic to help investigate. While Rory nurses a broken heart after the Reaper left, now he’s back in town and she needs him to solve the case. Witches & Words is the fourth in the Library Witch Mysteries by Elle Adams.

It’s a Word to the Wise in Jenn McKinlay’s tenth Library Lover’s Mystery. Lindsey Norris is finally getting married, but it’s not all roses for Briar Creek’s library director. A newcomer to town is showing up late in the night to Lindsey’s house and putting everyone on edge. When his death is staged outside the library, clues point to Lindsey’s fiancé. Lindsey must dig into the victim’s life to find the killer.

Set in Boston, Addie Greyborne is excited about the upcoming charity auction. Her bookstore, Beyond the Page, is donating an 1843 copy of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. The father of her late fiancé shows up and has a lunchtime liaison with the woman in charge of the auction. The woman winds up dead and the Dickens’s book is gone. Murder in the First Edition is the third in the Bookstore Mysteries by Lauren Elliott.

BEST OF THE REST
Carol J. Perry: Late Checkout Witch City Mystery #9

J.A. Jance: Sins of the Father J.P. Beaumont #24

Laura Levine: Death of a Gigolo A Jaine Austen #17
?Sandra Bretting: All Hats on Deck Missy DuBois Mystery Series #5

Susan M. Boyer: Lowcountry Boomerang A Liz Talbot Mystery #8

Ellen Byron: Fatal Cajun Festival Cajun Country Mystery Series #5

Debra H. Goldstein: Two Bites Too Many Sarah Blair Mystery Series #2

Mary Ellen Hughes: A Curio Killing Keepsake Cove Mystery Series #3

William Kent Krueger: This Tender Land Stand Alone mystery

Anne Perry: Death in Focus Either a new series or a Stand Alone novel

Mel Star: Without a Trace The Chronicles of Hugh de Singleton, Surgeon Chronicles

Charles Todd: A Cruel Deception Bess Crawford Mystery Series #11

Bree Baker: A Steep Too Far Seaside Café #3

Emily Brightwell: Mrs. Jeffries and the Alms of the Angel Mrs. Jeffries #38

Sofie Kelly: A Night’s Tail Magical Cats #11

Laurien Berenson: Here Comes Santa Paws

To enter to win a copy of Bite Club by Laurien Berenson, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “back to school” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen September 7, 2019. U.S. residents only. If entering via email please include your mailing address (so if you win we can get the book sent right out to you), and if via comment please include your email address. 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 iTunes/Apple Podcasts and Google Play. 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.

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