Book picks similar to
Hound on the Sound by Jessa Archer
ebook
mystery
cozy-mysteries
mystery-cozy
Sharpe Shooter
Lisa B. Thomas - 2015
They found a skeleton in the closet…literally. When they identify the man’s body 40 years after his disappearance, the family turns to their niece, Deena Sharpe, to uncover the truth about his murder. Deena, a burned-out high school teacher, soon discovers that a mysterious author is about to implicate her dead uncle in his latest conspiracy theory. She must channel her inner Lara Croft and Lois Lane to solve the puzzle and protect her family name. With the help of her off-beat brother and others from the cozy town of Maycroft, Texas, Deena takes on a quest that leads to more questions than answers. Along the way, she discovers some truths about life and herself as well.
Makeup & Murder
Stephanie Damore - 2017
When she’s attacked inside a client’s home and wakes to find a dead body, she gives up the safety of selling lipsticks for the dangerous role of detective. The dead man was her top client’s husband, and it turns out he used his money to buy more than happiness. With suspects piling up, a killer on the loose and her own life threatened, Ziva vows to solve the case and digs her high heels in even deeper. The last thing she expected is finding another dead body – or befriending the murderer!
Trouble at Happy Trails
Minnie Crockwell - 2014
By night’s end, a death in the park finds her consoling the deceased man’s widow...or his killer. Whether the dearly departed died by his own hand or whether someone murdered him remains to be seen. It seems the deceased had a lot of character flaws. A lot! Peregrine Ebenezer Alvord, otherwise known as Ben, is tagging along with Minnie on her travels. That he is an early 19th century ghost is only a minor complication. Ben has the ability to venture unseen where others cannot. Minnie never imagined herself as an amateur sleuth, but with Ben’s help, she might just be able to discover the source of the Trouble at Happy Trails! Trouble at Happy Trails is Book 1 of a series of short stories featuring Minnie and Ben. Each story can stand alone, but to avoid extensive repetition of the back story, the stories would be best read in order. Look for Book 2 soon!
Crime and Nourishment
Miranda Sweet - 2017
Neither does the island of Nantucket. A NEW RELEASE cozy mystery perfect for fans of Agatha Frost, Cynthia Ellingsen, Cindy Bell and CeeCee James When Agnes Mary Clarissa Christie Prouty, a.k.a. Angie, abandons her fiancé and her analyst job at a big Manhattan investment firm, she doesn’t expect to end up back where she started—the island of Nantucket. It’s not every day you get a chance to open a bookstore, complete with bookmark-eating cats and cantankerous great-aunts. Especially when your childhood friends agree to provide you with the world’s best pastries from their bakery down the street. Everything goes great until one of the locals turns up dead on the fourth of July, the sound of the gunshots covered by the local fireworks display. But did it have to happen right after Angie delivered a book to his home making her a prime suspect? Angie and every gossip on the island, including her great-aunt and her friends, are on the case. But trying to discover the truth is going to take more than a simple murder investigation. Someone’s guilty and the deadly secret might cut closer to home than anyone wants to admit.Being an amateur detective is harder than it looks, even when you’ve been named after the Queen of Crime.
This cozy mystery/amateur sleuth novel is book one in the Angie Prouty Nantucket Cozy Mystery Series
A Friend In Knead
Judith Jackson - 2018
It is springtime in Vermont, and Harriet’s life is finally on a roll. The Bluebell Café, her pride and joy, is a success, and someday soon it may even be solvent. In her scant free time she ghost writes her gran’s wildly popular advice column and tends to her beloved one-eyed, cross dressing, English Bulldog. But then Sevenoaks experiences its first murder in as long as anyone can remember, and the police investigation hits way too close to home. In order to save her café, Harriet and her best friend, Claire, are forced to conduct their own search for the killer. To further complicate matters, Harriet’s long-ago boyfriend – the love of her life – has moved back to town, and if her legs would just stop wobbling every time the two of them are together it would be easier to pretend she’s completely over him. A Friend in Knead is a cozy mystery full of tasty food, lots of laughs and a hit of romance. Includes some of The Bluebell Café’s most-loved recipes.
Raspberry Ripple Murder
Abby Byne - 2016
The only drawback to her new life as a baker is the dead electrician in her kitchen.Was the electrician the victim of a tragic on-the-job accident, or is there something much more sinister afoot? It’s up to Bitsie to find out with a little help from her sister-in-law, her recently-retired-from-the-police-force brother, and her too-handsome-to-be-real shop assistant.It’s not easy finding a murderer when your most compelling clue is a half-eaten raspberry ripple cupcake, but perhaps a pleasantly-plump cupcake connoisseur is the perfect woman for the job.
Dead Before The Wedding
Ruby Blaylock - 2015
Professional photographer and part-time bakery employee Carly Keene loves everything about her small hometown, except for the fact that there's a murderer on the loose. When one of Carly's photography clients is murdered just days before his wedding, it's up to Carly to prove that the most likely suspect isn't the culprit at all. With the help of her sassy best friend, Shell, and her clever cop cousin, Carly is determined to get to the truth, no matter what. Can Carly prove that the police are after the wrong woman? And are her feelings for the dead guy's twin brother more than just friendship and a shared love of their dogs? Find out in this first book of the Carly Keene Cozy Mystery series! Meet the colorful residents of Parker's Mill in the first-ever Carly Keene cozy mystery. ***Includes two mouthwatering recipe straight out of the Sweets & Eats Bakery!****
Skeletons in the Closet
Jennifer L. Hart - 2008
As the wife of retired Navy SEAL, and the adoptive mother of two little hellions, Maggie is constantly looking for ways to improve her family’s financial situation. She accepts a cleaning position for her new neighbors (who redefine the term ‘eccentric’), never imagining she will end up as the sole alibi for a man with a fascination for medieval torture devices when he is brought up on murder charges.While Maggie struggles to prove the man’s innocence, her deadbeat brother arrives, determined to sell Maggie and Neil on his next great scheme and to mooch with a vengeance. If that isn’t bad enough, her in-laws, (the cut-throat corporate attorneys) descend on the house, armed with disapproval and condemnation, for the family’s annual Thanksgiving celebration.As the police investigation intensifies, Maggie searches for the killer among the upper echelon of Hudson, Massachusetts in the only way she can— by scrubbing their thrones.Of the porcelain variety, that is…
How to Bake a Murder
K.J. Emrick - 2016
Cookie, call for an ambulance.” Definitely not the words you want to hear when a man has just collapsed in the middle of your bakery. A few minutes is all it took for Karen 'Cookie' Williams to be thrust into the center of a nightmare. A customer was dead and she was considered a suspect. Her beloved shop was a crime scene. Things weren't looking so great for her. If you add in the strange figure that was lurking around at night, the prominent businessman who was harassing her to sell up and an unhappy granddaughter who was spending the summer with her you had a recipe for disaster. Can Cookie work out who killed her customer and save her bakery from ruin before she becomes a victim herself?
Massage & Murder
Jenn Cowan - 2018
A professional. A healer. Not a killer. When a client ends up dead on my massage table, I become the number one suspect. I have Means. Motive. Opportunity. But I didn't kill her. The clock is ticking, someone is stalking me, I have to find out who before I end up in jail or worse...dead.
Witching Hour
Skylar Finn - 2019
When Samantha Hale and her best friend Cameron attend an estate sale filled with clocks at the home of a mysterious old woman and her eccentric granddaughter, they have no idea they're in for the adventure of a lifetime--and the clocks are only the beginning... Lost Magic When the famous ancient power of the Yew Tree fizzles out, Gwenlyn Bennett must travel to the otherworld to get it back. Spring in Yew Hollow delivers bad news for Gwenlyn Bennett. She can’t become an official member of the Summers coven until she completes a dangerous ancient ritual. Will she make it through to the end?
Paper Phoenix
Mickey Friedman - 1986
Maggie Longstreet has plenty of them after slimy, ambitious Richard trades her in for a more recent model. She’s so depressed she can barely get out of bed when Larry Hawkins, a seemingly not-at-all depressed acquaintance, commits suicide out of the blue. Suddenly Maggie goes on high alert, remembering something her evil ex said about Larry—something highly suspicious. And from there, it's just a short segué to a bracing new development: “When some women get divorced they go back to school, I thought. Some do volunteer work at the hospital, or join communes and learn to birth calves. Some have affairs with inappropriate men. My new interest is burglary. Maggie Longstreet, former wife and mother, past president of the Museum Guild, now starting a career as a second-story woman.” Fortunately, Maggie isn’t alone in her adventure—a very attractive, much younger man proves a lot more fun than Richard ever was. In fact, the real delight of this witty, sly mystery is seeing Maggie come alive again after a suffocating marriage. Set in the’70s, it has a bit of that Mad Men feel of women on the brink of something big. And completely unexpected. You know Maggie’s going to be okay when she says: “I’d rather have had one of those cute little guns with a mother-of-pearl handle, but this (diamond pin) would have to do. I concealed it in my hand. At least now I was armed—or pinned.”
Glad One: Crazy is a Relative Term
Margaret Lashley - 2017
Two gin and tonics. Three derelict beach-bum friends. Will Val’s fourth stab at starting over add up to a big fat zero?St. Pete Beach attracts weirdos like mosquitoes to a bug zapper. But when thrice-divorced native Val Fremden feels the tug to fly back to her old stomping grounds, she finds everyone and everything she knew squashed under the heels of change. Reluctantly cast into the weirdo world of down-and-outer beach bums, Val’s got nothing to go on but her own dry sense of humor and the life coach advice of a beer-guzzling old lady she meets at the beach. When an old hoarder passes away and leaves an uncertain heir to the throne, Val and her pals stir up a hornet’s nest trying to uncover the truth. Who’ll get stung and who’ll be named queen to the throne? It’s anybody's guess.If you like wacky, deeply flawed characters and laugh-out-loud situations, you’ll love Glad One! It’s the first book in Margaret Lashley’s hilarious Val Fremden Mystery Series.
Rest, Relax, Run for Your Life (Ooey Gooey Bakery Mystery Book 1)
Katherine H. Brown - 2019
Well, close. More like a long weekend at the O Heavenly Day Spa. A few mysterious notes start appearing everywhere, things get uncomfortable. As spa treatments go awry things get dangerous. A threatening message convinces Piper and Sam that they have to find out who is behind all of these disasters. When the smoke alarms go off and the spa erupts into panic, the chaos separates the friends and Piper stumbles into trouble. Will someone help her before it is too late?
Throw a Monkey Wrench
Karen Chester - 2016
She’s hired to throw a housewarming party for the brash and arrogant Tony Barnet, who’s eager to impress the big end of town. But when the party ends in disaster, Tony is quick to blame Emma, and the subsequent rumors spell doom for Emma’s business. Thank goodness she still has the job of planning Sean and Madison’s wedding. Sean, one of the notorious McCluskey clan, is about to marry Madison, the beautiful daughter of the rich and powerful Whites. But when Tony Barnet is killed, the police swiftly arrest Sean McCluskey. Though the evidence is damning, Emma is convinced her friend is innocent. With Sean facing prison, the wedding in jeopardy, and her fledgling business in danger of tanking, Emma must unravel the mystery and expose the real killer before it’s too late. The Emma Cassidy Mystery series: Book 1: Throw a Monkey Wrench Book 2: Pushed to the Limit Book 3: Murder Most Likely (coming in 2016)