Mysteries Add Side of Mayhem to Thanksgiving

It's that time of year when families gather to feast, malls crowd, e-commerce hums and marching bands parade, and for mystery writers those are all opportunities for old feuds to turn deadly and for killers to create mass death. There are so many Thanksgiving-themed mysteries out there, especially in the cozy mystery space, that I'll only highlight a few. In the "killer in the crowd" category, there is Richard Hawke's debut Speak of the Devil, in which former police commissioner Fritz Malone chases a mystery killer dubbed Nightmare, who has opened fire at New York City's Thanksgiving Day parade and threatens more carnage unless the city meets his impossible demands. For fans of J.D. Robb's Lieutenant Eve Dallas series, there is Thankless in Death, which pits Dallas against a grievance-filled son who has murdered his parents for Thanksgiving and plans to strike again; Dallas knows the who, how and why, but must race to figure out the next victim. For cozy fans, Leslie Meier has an appropriate holiday entry in her amateur sleuth Lucy Stone series, Turkey Day Murder, as charming Tinker's Cove festivities are marred by the murder of a Native American activist with a long list of enemies. Finally, as a Southerner, I have to include a Dixie side with Hit and Run by Sandra Balzo. Journalist AnnaLise Grigg returns to her hometown in North Carolina's western mountains for a Thanksgiving bash hosted by the town's legendary womanizer Dickens Hart, who turns out to be her birth father. The philanderer also invites all former lovers and other children he may have fathered in an attempt to "do right" by potential heirs to his huge fortune. No surprise that the gathering soon takes a deadly turn! For a long list of Thanksgiving-themed mysteries, check this 2019 mysteryreadersinc post at http://mysteryreadersinc.blogspot.com/2019/11/thanksgiving-mysteries-thanksgiving.html

Weddings More Fatal than Fun in Mysteries

The spring-summer wedding season is gearing up, and mystery writers are ready with their own murderous takes on wedded bliss as deadly secrets surface, relatives and friends feud, and, of course, money is the eternal catalyst tilting marriage to mayhem. Happily, this spring's crop of wedding-inspired mysteries includes some New York Times best-selling authors, starting with one of my favorites, Jonathan Kellerman, with Southern California settings and the unique sleuthing pair of psychologist Alex Delaware and LAPD detective Milo Sturgis. In The Wedding Guest, Sturgis and Delaware must crash a rowdy "Saints and Sinners"-themed wedding reception where a woman has been found with her throat slashed. Hundreds of guests, and the bride and groom, all claim ignorance of the woman's identity and innocence of any crime as Delaware and Sturgis literally try to separate saints from sinners. Also this year, Alan Bradley adds to his amusing and genre-irreverent Flavia de Luce series with The Golden Tresses of the Dead. This time, British 12-year-old chemist/sleuth/busybody Flavia is attending her sister's wedding in a small English town when a human finger turns up in the wedding cake! Of course, more delicious shocks lie ahead to challenge Flavia's detecting skills. Or maybe you want something a little cozier, then check out The Truffle With Weddings, 2019's installment of Laura Durham's Annabelle Archer Wedding Planner series (series debut Better Off Wed won an Agatha for Best First Novel). In her latest caper, society wedding planner Annabelle is struggling to please a demanding bride when a colleague drops dead after eating a poisoned chocolate, and her best friend and caterer Richard Gerard is suspected. For more cozy mystery series with a wedding theme, check out http://cozy-mysteries-unlimited.com/party-event-planner-list

Senior Themes: Proving Mystery Never Gets Old

Because I'm in the process of moving my 91-year-old father to an assisted living facility, I've been researching the mysteries of aging--and aging in mysteries. Most mysteries about seniors feature amusing, quirky "golden-agers" of the "cozy" mystery variety. I guess it's reassuring to read about older characters who aren't "cognitively impaired" and "mobility challenged" while "facing mortality." But, after dealing with real senior issues, I began to hanker for a realistic senior detective without a sweetening dose of cute humor. And I wanted characters and social issues more contemporary than Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in an English country manor! My search of senior-themed mysteries turned up one non-cozy example in Daniel Friedman's Don't Ever Get Old, winner of the Macavity Award for Best First Novel and nominee for both Anthony and Edgar awards for best first novel. Ex-Memphis detective "Buck" Schatz starts on the trail of an old nemesis, partly to settle scores and partly to recover a possible treasure in gold. Though 80-something Buck is literally “too old for this,” his instincts remain, and he does have a grandson's help with things like “the googles” and other technological hurdles. Violence and realism are laced by humor that acknowledges mortality and old age's physical and mental limitations. Another discovery was Thirty-Three Teeth by British author Colin Cotterill, which won a 2006 Dilys Award from the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. Dr. Siri Paiboun, one of the last doctors left in Laos after the Communist takeover, has been drafted to be national coroner and must unravel a series of mysterious murders. Untrained for the job, the 72-year-old has outstanding qualifications undimmed by age: curiosity and the courage to follow clues despite political pressure. But I'm not opposed to a spunky elder sleuth if he or she is the credible product of a spunky elder author! Start with Macavity Award nominee A Valley to Die For by 81-year-old Radine Trees Nehring, which introduces widow Carrie McCrite and retired detective Henry King to her "Something to Die For" series set in the Ozark mountains. From 83-year-old Lorena McCourtney comes the gray-haired Ivy Malone, protagonist of a series that includes two Daphne du Maurier Award winners, Invisible and On the Run. Finally, Edgar Award-winning screenwriter Rita Lakin, 87, offers the Gladdy Gold series, starting with Getting Old Is Murder, in which 75-year-old Gladdy Gold and her gang of Fort Lauderdale retirees hunt down a killer. For cozy senior options, see http://www.mystery-cozy.com/Mystery-Cozy-Senior-Sleuth-Cozies.html

Senior Lady Sleuths: Gray Locks Join Gray Matter

Now that I'm joining the ranks of senior citizens in a few years (I'm holding off true membership till age 65), I find myself more interested in mystery tales featuring older lady sleuths. Of course, Agatha Christie's Miss Jane Marple, the shrewdly observant spinster of St. Mary Mead, has an international fan base. And Jessica Fletcher, Donald Bain's retired English teacher and novelist, even won a TV following for the "Murder, She Wrote" series. There are many other outstanding examples: M.C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin, a retired PR agent turned PI; globe-trotting Mrs. Emily Pollifax, grandmother and spy, of the eponymous Dorothy Gilman series; and Eugenia Potter, widowed chef and star of the culinary cozy mysteries of Virginia Rich and Nancy Pickard. I wondered if there was some special set of skills offered by older ladies to make them appealing to mystery writers. And I came up with five reasons a mystery author might choose to create a gray-haired female detective. For one thing, as retirees, and often widows or spinsters, older women have more time to devote to detection without the constant, complicating drag of career and/or family on character and plot. Second, their judgment can be informed by age rather than years of police training, so they can draw on long experience with personal and social interactions to pick up the subtle clues to murder. Third, these fictional characters can be freed by age, maturely comfortable in their own skins and less constrained by worry over social conventions and sexual politics. This allows authors to create an eccentric, independent, adventurous or even comical character that would be less believable as a 20-something or 30-something heroine. Fourth, older ladies can approach evil obliquely and catch it unawares, because there are few people seen as less threatening than a grandmother or maiden aunt. And, finally, these fictional sleuths are not just older people, they are older women. Even today, most societies reward men for action, control and dominance, and encourage women to be more observant, emotionally attuned and socially participant. Female detectives can turn that gender bias into an advantage in terms of honed human observational skills. For some more senior sleuths, check out author Chris Well's post at http://chriswellnovelist.blogspot.com/2010/07/retirement-is-murder-10-senior-sleuths.html

When Cat Lovers Unite With Mystery Lovers

Based on the number of titles available, there is a relatively large mystery audience that combines love of detective/crime fiction with a love of cats. Felines have sauntered into a growing list of series: Black Cat Bookshop mysteries, Joe Grey mysteries, Magical Cats mysteries, Cat Who... mysteries, Cat in the Stacks mysteries, Midnight Louie mysteries, etc. But I would note that there also are cat-mystery creations outside the usual "cozy" corner. For a selection of crime stories featuring cats by leading authors, read Mystery Cats by Ruth Rendell, author of the classic A Dark-Adapted Eye. Her anthology includes authors such as Lillian Jackson Braun (Cat Who...series author) but also Patricia Highsmith, Edgar Allan Poe, Joyce Harrington, Patricia Moyes, Margaret Maron, Lillian de la Torre and Edward D. Hoch, plus Rendell herself. Or just go straight to a dark place with Edgar Allan Poe's classic The Black Cat, in which the alcoholic narrator describes his descent into madness, murdering his beloved black cat and then his wife, only to be haunted and his guilt exposed by another black cat. For those who prefer classic English mystery style, I'd try a cat lover's suggestion set in 1930s England: In The Norths Meet Murder, by Frances & Richard Lockridge, an unknown murdered man is found in the Norths' bathtub, and the only clues are the sooty footprints of their black cat. One of Japan's leading novelists, Haruki Murakami, often weaves cats into his novels. For example, he begins his gripping The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle with a man's search for his wife's missing cat, a search that blossoms into a detective story and an excavation of buried secrets of World War II. For feline-focused mystery series, see the Goodreads selection at https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/cat-mystery

Holidays & Mysteries Reveal Family Dysfunction

It's the holiday season, and families gather to celebrate, tolerate or denigrate as the case may be. If your family has its share of dysfunction, it may be time to gain perspective via mysteries with dysfunctional families at their core. For example, check out A Banquet of Consequences, this year's new Inspector Lynley mystery by Edgar Award-winning Elizabeth George. At the center of a family's deadly web sits mother Caroline Goldacre, a pathological liar who has damaged her sons, driven one husband away, made her incumbent partner miserable, and is now blamed for a troubled son's suicide by his girlfriend, whom mom blames in turn. When someone is poisoned, is monster Caroline also a murderer or, as she claims, the intended victim? Either scenario makes sense with this mom from hell! For a lighter take, read The Spellman Files, the first novel of Lisa Lutz's humorous mystery series featuring Isabel "Izzy" Spellman. Izzy works for her dysfunctional, though snoopily competent, family in their private investigation firm. The Spellmans are so addicted to detecting that they spend their off hours investigating each other--tailing, wiretapping and backmailing family. When Izzy's parents hire her 14-year-old sister to trail her and find out about her love life, Izzy decides it's time to quit. But she has to finish one last job, a missing person cold case that turns into the most important case of her life. For a classic psychological thriller, turn to the 1986 Edgar Award winning A Dark Adapted Eye by Ruth Rendell, writing as Barbara Vine. Narrator Faith Severn recalls a 30-year-old tragedy involving her dominating, possessive aunt, Vera Hillyard, who initially seeks to control her beautiful younger sister Eden to the neglect of son Frances, and then abandons focus on Eden to dote on younger son James, who may or may not be illegitimate. When Eden marries but cannot have children, she demands custody of James, claiming he is mistreated by Vera. The two sisters become embroiled in a custody battle that ends in violence and disturbing revelations. Or maybe you just want to escape with a comforting, seasonal "cozy" mystery instead: http://cozy-mysteries-unlimited.com/thanksgiving-list

How July 4 Fireworks Inspire Mystery Writers

July 4 is a holiday synonymous with summertime family fun--backyard barbecues, beach picnics, fireworks in the park, local parades, etc. And that makes it an interesting backdrop for murder mysteries. First, it's easy to forget that July 4 commemorates the birth of a nation in violent revolution, but this Fourth comes on the heels of headlines--the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage and racially motivated violence--that remind us that a nation founded on the concept of inalienable rights is still fighting to realize those ideals for all citizens. A mystery writer certainly can find murderous motives in old, violent biases--with joyous fireworks bursting ironically in the background. Second, the nation is still threatened by internal and external enemies, although very different ones from 1776, as shown by recent headlines about potential terrorist attacks on Independence Day. It's not hard to imagine the plot for a mystery-thriller! But mainly, we are plagued by more personal demons on the holiday. I am certain that, as families, friends and strangers gather together, there will be many new headlines about violence from fractured relationships and fractured minds. Since the most common violence on the Fourth of July comes at home, the "cozy" mysteries are also those that most often embrace an Independence Day theme, with an emphasis on amateur female sleuths, recipes and cute pets. Here are four 2015 July 4-theme mysteries for your (very light) holiday reading. First comes Nancy Coco with Oh Say Can You Fudge: Allie Murphy, owner of a hotel and fudge shop, plans to hire an aerial skywriter for a holiday display, but he turns up murdered. Next, is Isis Crawford's A Catered Fourth of July: Two sisters in a small New York town cater a Revolutionary War battle reenactment and then become sleuths when the town's playboy is killed. Cute canines dominate in Mutts & Murder, a Dog Town USA Cozy Mystery by Amazon best-seller Meg Muldoon: Winifred Wolf is covering canine-related stories for the local newspaper in Dog Mountain, Oregon, when a dead body is found in the local dog park before the annual Fourth of July Pooch Parade. Last on the list is Doggone Dead, another mystery in the popular Pecan Bayou series by Teresa Trent: In Pecan Bayou, Texas, Betsy Livingston is looking for her runaway puppy when she stumbles upon a murder on a dead movie-cowboy star's estate. For a much longer list of Fourth of July cozy mysteries, see http://www.cozy-mystery.com/blog/fourth-of-july-mystery-book-theme-list.html