Book picks similar to
A Disguise to Die For by Diane Vallere
mystery
cozy-mystery
cozy-mysteries
cozy
Tempest in the Tea Leaves
Kari Lee Townsend - 2011
But when she uses tea leaves to read the frazzled town librarian, what lies at the bottom of the cup is anything but helpful.
Pains and Penalties
Sarah Biglow - 2016
A murder in plain sight at the annual Solstice Fair pushes Kalina to snoop where she doesn't belong, much to the chagrin of former high school sweetheart, Detective Christian Harper.As Kalina digs into the victim's past she uncovers a dark truth that the victim and her closest friends were hoping to take the grave. A truth the killer wants revealed.Will Kalina and Chris catch the killer before the killer's thirst for vengeance is sated?Pick up your copy FREE.
Death by Chocolate
Sally Berneathy - 2011
Suddenly Lindsay finds herself battling poisoned chocolate, a dead man who doesn't seem very dead and a psycho stalker. Her best friend and co-worker, Paula, dyes her blond hair brown, hides from everybody and insists on always having an emergency exit from any room. Secrets from Paula's past have come back to put lives in jeopardy. Determined to help Paula and to save her own life, Lindsay enlists the reluctant aid of another neighbor, Fred, an OCD computer nerd. In spite of his mundane existence, Fred possesses tidbits of knowledge about such things as hidden microphones, guns and the inside of maximum security prisons. Lindsay needs more than a chocolate fix to survive all this chaos. Lindsay Powell's only secret is the recipe for her chocolate chip cookies, but she is surrounded by neighbors with deadly secrets. Suddenly Lindsay finds herself battling poisoned chocolate, a dead man who doesn't seem very dead and a psycho stalker. Lindsay needs more than a chocolate fix to survive all this chaos.
Tastes Like Murder
Catherine Bruns - 2015
After her divorce, she returns to her hometown to start a novelty cookie shop whose specialties include original fortune cookies, served with a sprinkle of foreshadowing. But there’s no warning when her ex-husband’s mistress drops dead on Sal's porch, and police confirm it’s a homicide. Determined to stop her life from becoming a recipe for disaster, Sal takes matters into her own hands. With two very different men vying for her affection, dead bodies piling up, and a reputation hanging by an apron string, Sal finds herself in a race against time to save both her business and life—before the last cookie crumbles.
Assault and Pepper
Leslie Budewitz - 2015
Her aromatic creations are the talk of the town, and everyone stops by for a cup of her refreshing spice tea, even other shopkeepers and Market regulars. But when a panhandler named Doc shows up dead on the store’s doorstep, a Seattle Spice Shop cup in his hand, the local gossip gets too hot for Pepper to handle—especially after the police arrest one of Pepper’s staffers, Tory Finch, for murder.Tory seems to know why she’s a suspect, but she refuses to do anything to curry favor with the cops. Convinced her reticent employee is innocent, Pepper takes it on herself to sniff out some clues. Only, if she’s not careful, Pepper’s nosy ways might make her next on the killer’s list…
Death Takes Priority
Jean Flowers - 2015
Leaving behind her managerial position in the Boston main postal office, Cassie trades in her tailored suits and high heels for the comfortable blue shirt and red, white, and blue striped scarf of the Postmaster for North Ashcot, Massachusetts.Everything is business as usual until Cassie arrives at work one day to find that someone has broken into the post office building. The only items stolen: stacks of telephone books. Who steals phone books? Two days later, the body of an unidentified man is found in the woods. And when the handsome antiques dealer she just had lunch with is taken into custody, Cassie is suddenly drawn into the case. With a crime enveloped in mystery, she needs to track the killer--before another victim's fate is sealed in the dead letter office...
Clammed Up
Barbara Ross - 2013
But that was before a catered wedding on picturesque Morrow Island turned into a reception for murder. When the best man’s corpse is found hanging from the grand staircase in the Snowden family mansion, Julia must put the chowder pot on the back burner and join the search for the killer. And with suspicion falling on her old crush, Chris Durand, the recipe for saving her business and salvaging her love life might be one and the same.
Murder in an Irish Village
Carlene O'Connor - 2016
Nowadays twenty-two-year-old Siobhán O’Sullivan runs the family bistro named for her mother, along with her five siblings, after the death of their parents in a car crash almost a year ago. It’s been a rough year for the O’Sullivans, but it’s about to get rougher. One morning, as they’re opening the bistro, they discover a man seated at a table, dressed in a suit as if for his own funeral, a pair of hot pink barber scissors protruding from his chest. With the local garda suspecting the O’Sullivans, and their business in danger of being shunned—murder tends to spoil the appetite—it’s up to feisty redheaded Siobhán to solve the crime and save her beloved brood.
Skating Around the Law
Joelle Charbonneau - 2010
Fast. However, when she discovers the dead body of the town’s handyman headfirst in a rink toilet, potential buyers are scared off. Now Rebecca is stuck in a small town where her former neighbors think she doesn’t belong, living with her scarily frisky grandfather, Pop, and relying on a police department that’s better at gardening than solving crimes.Eager to move forward with her life, Rebecca begins investigating the murder herself, reluctantly accepting help from Pop and his extensive social network, which includes a handsome veterinarian and a former circus camel named Elwood. Nevertheless, someone isn’t happy she’s looking into the case, and their threats will have her questioning whether playing sleuth was such a good idea after all.Joelle Charbonneau’s debut is a sheer delight---a laugh-out-loud mystery with plenty of heart.
Pushing Up Daisies
Rosemary Harris - 2008
Paula can handle deer, slugs, and the occasional human pest---but she’s not prepared for the mummified body she finds while restoring the gardens at Halcyon, a local landmark. Casual snooping turns serious when a body is impaled on a garden tool and one of Paula’s friends is arrested for the crime. Aided by the still-hot aging rocker who owns the neighborhood greasy spoon, a wise-cracking former colleague, and a sexy Mexican laborer with a few secrets of his own, Paula digs for the truth and unearths more dirty business the town has kept buried for years.
The Final Arrangement
Annie Adams - 2012
But there’s a problem—Quincy is now the main suspect in The Vulture’s murder. Armed with only her Zombie delivery van, good intentions, and the business card of a handsome cop named Alex, she must find the killer, save the flower shop, and keep from ending up in the next casket. If she can dodge burning bushes, the plague of a polygamist ex, and her mother's Mormon Mafia Spy Network, her life with Alex and her shop could become the perfect arrangement.
The Agatha Christie Book Club
C.A. Larmer - 2012
It's a mystery so baffling it would leave even the Queen of Crime scratching her head...After gathering seven crime buffs together—including young librarian Missy (as ditzy as Miss Marple and as sharp), fashionista Claire, paleontologist Perry (both stylish and fastidious like Poirot), dashing Dr Anders, a poisons expert, and socialite Barbara Parlour—Alicia grows suspicious when one of them fails to show for the next book club.Barbara has disappeared from the face of the earth and her arrogant husband, Arthur, seems coldly unconcerned. The group suspects him of foul play until he suddenly shows up dead. With two baffling mysteries and time fast running out, the book club decides to do as the meddling Miss Marple would do and investigate!So begins the first exciting instalment of the Agatha Christie Book Club (ACBC), a motley collection of amateur sleuths who use Christie as their guide to help solve a range of mysteries that fall into their lap. Following in the footsteps of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, the group must sort the clues from the red herrings to solve the murder of Arthur Parlour and determine what happened to his missing wife. Has she been brutally murdered or is she somehow, somewhere still alive?Like Poirot before them, the ACBC uncover a stream of shifty suspects along the way including flirtatious housekeeper Rosa, sleazy tennis coach Jake, traitorous BFF Wanda, and impoverished brother Niles. They must also face each other because, as Alicia discovers, each of the book club members is hiding a secret of their own. Their secrets could jeopardize the case, or crack it wide open.Returning to Agatha Christie's books time and again for inspiration and advice, the ACBC quickly unravel a baffling mystery that will leave readers guessing right until the end.C.A. Larmer, author of the popular Ghostwriter Mystery novels, shines again in this exciting new series that is fun and easy to read with eclectic characters and a plot you simply can't put down.Can you work the mystery out before the Agatha Christie Book club do?
Bed and Breakfast and Murder
Patti Larsen - 2017
Instead, I forced myself to smile and swallow and remind myself the elbow length yellow rubber gloves grasping the handle of the standard issue plunger were all that stood between me and Pooageddon.Suck it up, Fee. Big girl panties and adulting and all that."At what point," I waved the dripping plunger, wincing as droplets of yuck flew, "did I think owning a bed and breakfast was going to be glamorous and romantic?"Fiona Fleming hasn't lived in Reading, Vermont in over a decade, her escape from small town living leading her to New York City and a life of adventure. An adventure that has left her with no career, an ex who cheated on her and zero plans for the future. Her grandmother's death grants her a new chance--inheriting Petunia's, Iris Fleming's bed and breakfast, seems like the ideal fresh start. But when Fee finds out ownership of the property Iris willed her might be in question, she's drawn into the seedy underbelly of the cutest town in America after being singled out as the main suspect in a murder.
Better Off Read
Nora Page - 2018
She takes to her bookmobile, Words on Wheels, to collect allies and rally library support throughout Catalpa Springs, Georgia.However, Cleo soon rolls into trouble. A major benefactor known for his eccentric DIY projects requests all available books on getting away with murder. He’s no Georgia peach, and Cleo wonders if she should worry about his plans. She knows she should when she discovers him bludgeoned and evidence points to her best friend, Mary-Rose Garland. Sure of Mary-Rose’s innocence, Cleo applies her librarian’s sleuthing skills to the case, assisted by friends, family, and the dapper antiquarian bookseller everyone keeps calling her boyfriend. Evidence stacks up, but a killer is overdue to strike again. With lives and her library on the line, Cleo must shift into high gear to close the book on murder in Better Off Read, the charming Bookmobile series debut by Nora Page.
A Veiled Deception
Annette Blair - 2009
At the engagement party, the ‘Jezebel’ trying to steal Sherry’s fiancé is found strangled with a bridal veil, making Sherry the prime suspect. Besides seeking the real killer, Maddie alters Sherry’s vintage wedding gown, worn by generations of the groom’s family, and something odd happens. The gown gives Maddie visions, clues to the past . . . and the murder? Maddie learns she’s psychometric, a psychic gift she inherited from her late mother, who was a broom-carrying witch, it turns out. What other gifts did she inherit? When not sleuthing, Maddie acquires the old Underhill Funeral Chapel Carriage House, including Dante Underhill, a chatty debonair ghost in tux and top hat, who can’t seem to leave the building. Watch out Mystic, Connecticut! Here comes Vintage Magic, a shop for vintage couture and designer originals, featuring a psychic sleuth, a hunk of a ghost, with a sprinkle of magic thrown in for ‘charm.’