DO-IT-YOURSELF COZY

Instructions:  Choose one (or more, it doesn’t really matter) from each set of {bracketed} choices.

Our heroine, {Amanda/ Nutmeg/ Kate/ Margaret Mary/ Monongahela} Tyler, an attractive and spunky [Warning: these attributes are compulsory and not subject to choice, except that 'impulsive' may be substituted for 'spunky'] {young/ 30-something/ middle-aged/ retired }woman has just moved {back to her hometown/ out of the big city/ to England/ to Indian country/ to the Arctic Circle}. She is leaving her career as a {banker/ professor/ forger/ snake handler/ nun} in order to escape {the memory of her recently failed love affair/ the hectic pressure of her profession/ the mob/ unwarranted allegations of wrongdoing/ constant reminders of that job-related incident that will be alluded to but not explained for another 150 pages}. She plans to put her old life behind her and focus on a) the true calling she had felt as a child but never pursued – {type design/ druidic rituals/ Morris dancing/ upholstery/ tying balloon animals/ training as a dominatrix} – OR – b) taking over the {craft store/ restaurant/ bookstore} she has inherited from an aged female relative she was always fond of but seldom saw.

Despite abandoning her previous means of support, she has no apparent problems making ends meet. Sadly, she does have problems fitting into her new setting and gaining acceptance from the community, thanks to {the reckless high school past she can’t live down/ her residence in the mansion that once belonged to the now-impoverished local gentry/ her father’s residence in the insane asylum/ her incredible hotness causing rampant jealousy/ the town’s antipathy to latex and-or Morris dancing/ her peculiar
name}.

Matters are further complicated by her simultaneous attraction/repulsion to Dougal MacDougal, the local {policeman/ sheriff/ priest/ jewel thief turned security consultant/ tabloid journalist/ vampire}, and by her fretting over the {availability/ appropriateness/ discomfort} of high heels. Tyler is immediately drawn to Dougal because he is unbelievably {sexy/ sexy/ sexy/ sexy} and fortunately available despite the perfection of his form. For his part, Dougal {has been nursing a longtime crush for her/ feels an improper lust for her from the moment he sees her/ seemingly rejects her and all that she stands for/ would like to see her in handcuffs/ smolders in a way that is difficult to interpret (unless he’s the vampire and out in the sun)}.

Although there has been no violent crime in the area for decades prior to her arrival, Tyler soon stumbles over a dead body in {her own home/ a snow bank/ a church/ a sweat lodge/ a trunk at a rummage sale/ a gathering of whatever group she has gotten involved with}. The body is that of {her ex-boyfriend/ the town busybody/ a local politician/ a religious leader/ a long-missing person/ a vampire (ok, in this case not actually a body-a pile of dust)}. The cause of death – {crushing in a printing press/ strangling with a balloon/choking on tiny bells/ mummification in cloth/ severe latex allergy/ puncture marks in the neck} – indicates murder most foul. {Because she discovered the body/ because she was the victim’s principal legatee/ for no particular reason}, Dougal immediately suspects {Tyler/ Tyler’s best friend/ Tyler’s close relative}, or so it seems to her, and she {fears the possible truth/resents the injustice} of Dougal’s suspicions.

Dougal cautions Tyler not to get involved. This caution has no effect whatsoever on the indignant Tyler. In her defense, she was not really paying that much attention, as she was distracted by his {icy blue eyes/ steely gray eyes/ warm chocolate brown eyes/ imagined nakedness/ ambiguous sexuality/ lack of reflection in the mirror}. So, despite her complete lack of expertise and the far superior resources and access available to law enforcement, she resolves to investigate the crime on her own. Well, not entirely on her own: she has the aid (and the matchmaking efforts) of {her black best friend/ her gay best friend/ a prostitute with a heart of gold/ an intrepid band of nuns/ a well-meaning ghost/ her hyper-intelligent feline companion/ her gigantic loyal dog who seems threatening but is aggressive only to those who are a danger to her}.

Fortunately, {her specialized knowledge/ supernatural assistance/ sheer dumb luck/ the incompetence of the police} allows Tyler to discover vital clues that have been unaccountably overlooked. She spends several paragraphs in unconvincing self-justification of her reasons for withholding this evidence: {the police wouldn’t believe her anyway/ the police can’t be trusted/ there is no need to bother anyone with what’s just a supposition/ she shouldn’t have taken the evidence in the first place so she can’t admit it now}.

As it turns out, the evidence must not actually be all that helpful, as it leads Tyler to suspect everyone in turn. There is no lack of suspects to choose from, since the victim’s {domineering personality/ habit of blackmailing/ sexual misconduct/ theft of valuable personal or intellectual property/ financial fraud} ruined numerous lives. Tyler’s snooping, although futile to her, must be meaningful to the murderer, since she discovers her {car/ home / studio/ monastic cell/ bondage dungeon} has been broken into and ransacked, and she is forced to spend the night {at her friend’s apartment/ letting Dougal sleep on the couch/ reliving the horror of her situation and eating junk food}.

Tyler is momentarily stymied – until there is a second murder, even more grotesque than the first (yet still not leaving any physical evidence of use to professional law enforcement). She finds this body while {keeping an ill-fated appointment with the victim/ blithely trespassing in someone’s home when no one answers the door/ breaking and entering with no legal consequences}. This is too much – Tyler is determined to keep the body count from rising any further.

A chance thought that occurred to the alert reader seven chapters earlier suddenly causes Tyler to ask a few last-minute questions of a {friend/ associate/ suspect/ previously unheard-of character} (rather than do something boring like go to the police). Darn it!-it’s the murderer, who quickly subdues Tyler with a {poison concoction/ whip/ set of fangs/ ceremonial athame/ vicious balloon animal/ videotape of Morris dancing championships}. In the nick of time, she is saved by a [deus ex machina of your choice].

Dougal is so relieved she is safe that he shows her sufficient {hints of interest/ anger} to allow their love/hate relationship to be dragged out over as many more books as the market will bear.

An appendix may follow with {font recommendations/ fabric swatches/ Druid rituals/ bondage tips/ a list of blood types/ a balloon}.

READER’S DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
Why are heroines allowed to have green eyes while heroes must have blue, gray, or brown?
What’s the big deal with high heels anyway?
Are the undead unnatural if they’re really good looking?  Explain while solving a mystery.

The End

I admit it – I’m a fabric junkie and a quilting addict. I don’t know how it happened, nor do I know if it was a subtle or quick transformation. All I know is that I have vague memories of being normal and then the realization that I want to own every piece of fabric and I want it all NOW !  So, it’s not too hard to understand that I also gravitate toward books and magazines with a quilting theme.

There are literally hundreds of variations of quilt blocks and they are all named.  So when I laid eyes on Old Maid’s Puzzle at the office of my favorite book supplier, I recognized the title as a quilt block before I even realized it is a mystery novel (another of my addictions !). It was a must have, must read for me.

I found the very first chapter to be a strange introduction to a quilting mystery: although not yet named, Dewey Pellicano, the book’s protagonist, is with Buster Healy, police detective, and her love interest. The reader is informed of Buster’s refusal to have sex because he feels that he and Dewey need to get to know each other better.  This  issue continues to come up from time to time but is an issue that I feel adds nothing to the story.

On to the “good part” and what makes this a “quilting mystery”. Dewey has inherited from her mother a quilt shop, Quilter Paradiso, along with some of her mother’s employees.  Unfortunately, Dewey did not inherit any sewing or quilting genes. As if trying to run a quilt shop while trying to learn how to quilt isn’t bad enough, there’s the problem employee, Kym, who also happens to be Dewey’s sister in law. And did I mention the dead body in the alley behind the shop ? Already in a shaky financial situation, a murder scares away customers and threatens to further erode the shop’s bottom line. Dewey can only hope that the 20th Anniversary Sale and Quilter Paradiso being on national TV will bring in the customers. Still, there’s a murder to be solved and Dewey is up to the challenge.

There is certainly a diverse group of characters who comprise Old Maid’s Puzzle and specifically  Quilter Paradiso, however, Kym is noteworthy due to her ongoing efforts to sabotage Dewey. Since Kym is family, Dewey feels an obligation toward her but I kept thinking I would never tolerate her behavior and I kept wondering why Dewey didn’t fire her (as I would have !). There are also sad parts, such as when we learn more about the dead man and how he had been stealing from one of the older quilters and selling her possessions on ebay.

This was a fun book for me to read. As a quilter herself, Terri Thayer knows the quilting lingo and the mention of fat quarters, redwork, batiks, Just Quilts (the fictional version of a real TV quilting show) and so many other quilting expressions, made me smile. But don’t be intimidated if you don’t sew or quilt, this book is a quick read and has broad appeal for any mystery lover.

Reviewed by Jean Tribull Harris.

I have the latest in sewing equipment, including machines that embroider and quilt, so when I see a book that combines my favorite hobbies of reading and sewing, I’m all over it !  Bits and Pieces may be a stretch for me, since quilting for me is an individual activity as opposed to the concept of a “quilting bee” in which a quilt is the pieced quilt top  stretched over a frame and hand quilted by a group of quilters.

This is a cozy mystery that takes place in Scottsdale, Arizona and opens with quilter, Clare Patterson, calling one of the other quilters, Maggie Browne, to report that she is in Big Mart and saw Kenny Upland, a neighbor and the suspect in an explosion that killed his wife and their five year old twin daughters. Kenny has been a fugitive for six months and Maggie is disbelieving that Kenny would be shopping so close to home where the police are searching for him. Clare is urged by Maggie to call 911 but Clare decides to follow Kenny in her car when he leaves Big Mart. Clare is feeling very smug: Kenny is the object of an extensive manhunt, the authorities have been unsuccessful, but she, Clare Patterson, has found him; she’s just like the amateur sleuths in the mystery novels she reads or like Jessica Fletcher from TV!

Tailing Kenny is not easy; thunder, lightening, heavy rain, slick and unfamiliar roads cause Clare to crash her car and lose consciousness. She wakes up to find she has been rescued by Kenny and she is in his hideaway. Kenny, a veteran of the Iraq war,  shares with Clare that he suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder but he truly loved his wife and children and would not have done anything to harm them.  Clare returns to the Quilting Bee and relates her experience with the quilters.  While some of the members of the Quilting Bee are ambivalent toward Kenny, they do indeed mobilize to solve this mystery.

I liked this book !  The short synopsis presented here does not do justice to all the characters and their personalities and sleuthing skills. For those readers who are not quilters, there is not an over abundance of references to quilting and for those of us who love making quilts, the references to quilting make us think of fabric, patchwork and bits and pieces.

Now, I have to read other books by Annette Mahon !

Reviewed by Jean Tribull Harris.

Cooper Lee is a bit unusual in that she repairs copy machines for a living, something that’s normally done by men, but in other ways she’s just like many other people—attempting to recover from a bad breakup, living with her parents to try to get her life back together again, doing the best she can to get along with her family and the world.

Cooper is also like many of us in feeling somewhat at loose ends so, when a client invites her to visit her church, she decides to go in the hope of perhaps meeting people and getting some new interest in her life to help her move on from the breakup.  She accidentally gets pulled into a bible study group, something she really wasn’t planning on, and learns there that her client, Brooke, has been found murdered.

Brooke’s husband, Wesley, has been arrested for the murder but the Sunshine Bible Study folks don’t believe their friend is guilty.  Concerned that the police will not investigate as thoroughly as they should because they have a suspect in custody, the group jumps in to see what they can discover, pulling Cooper right along with them—and Cooper finds she wants to be involved and isn’t half bad at sleuthing.

Confession time—the author is a friend so I can’t help being a little bit biased.  Having said that, I really did enjoy this Hope Street Church Mystery.  As Christian fiction, the book will appeal to that readership but also to many other mystery lovers as Ms. Stanley handles the religious atmosphere subtly and unobtrusively.  Character and plot development are both strong and the whodunit is not too easily solved by the reader.  I did, however, have two quibbles with the story—at times, it was a tad too “clean” for my taste and sometimes I really felt that Cooper needed to get over it, that she was dwelling way too much on the ex-boyfriend six months after he dumped her.  When all is said and done, though, this is a very good beginning for the author’s third series and I’m looking forward to the next book, Path of the Wicked, due out in April.

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor.

Pet psychic Mary Catherine is a widow with panache and a successful radio show.  Then, one day, she hears the thoughts of an animal in distress and discovers a turtle with the body of his murdered owner.  Unfortunately, turtles don’t have a good grasp on communication skills so Mary Catherine will need to do some sleuthing to figure out what has happened, especially since the police don’t exactly have faith in her psychic abilities.

I’m not sure if this is a standalone or the first in a series—no new titles have been listed yet—but I enjoyed it.  It’s entertaining in a lighthearted way and quite amusing to “read” the thoughts of the animals.

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Hollywood Cemetery: A Tour
James E. DuPriest, Jr.
Richmond Discoveries, 1989
ISBN 0941087018
Trade Paperback

This is a small (28 pages) booklet that would be of little interest to anyone other than a resident of Richmond, Virginia, or someone who likes to explore old cemeteries.  Hollywood Cemetery, dedicated in 1849, is an especially beautiful resting place for people from all walks of life, including U.S. presidents, Confederate soldiers and generals, and Supreme Court justices.  Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Hollywood is a place where locals and tourists go to enjoy incredible beauty and peace while immersing themselves in history.

This treatise offers descriptions of the burial sites of some of the more prominent “citizens” as well as many photographs and the history of the cemetery and is a must-have for anyone with an interest in cemeteries in general and this one in particular.

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The Unscratchables

The Unscratchables

Cornelius Kane
Scribner, 2009
ISBN 1416596410
Trade Paperback

San Bernardo police dog detective Max “Crusher” McNash finds that he must ignore his misgivings and work with special agent Cassius Lap of the Feline Bureau of Investigation when a serial killer cat begins targeting dogs, starting with two Rottweiler goons for hire and progressing through movie star Jack Russell Crowe and other victims.  Along the way, they are offered help by an incarcerated psycho cat, convicted of murder.

Seemingly just another entry in the collection of animal-driven mysteries, this one is different.  Most of the books in this subgenre are naturally very cozy in nature and involve humans but this is a classic hardboiled story with a great deal of satirical humor set in a completely human-free world (although all the accoutrements of humans–clothing, bars, divorce, etc.–are present).   Anyone who likes the Raymond Chandlers of the mystery world and who can place tongue firmly in cheek will enjoy this book.  I really hope there will be more stories of Crusher and Cass.

Eggs Benedict Arnold

When I think of this book, I think first about Petra, Suzanne and Toni. These women joined their talents to create one fabulous eating, reading and knitting place of comfort where one can hang in peace. At least that was the plan.

Add to the mix Carmen, the neighborhood shop owner and author and the woman who wants what everyone else has. I would pity her if she wasn’t so mean to everyone. She has to win the cake competition but doesn’t do the work. She has to bully her salesgirl and insult her no matter how good of a job she does to make Carmen’s shop’s opening day a success. You would think this would make the perfect victim, wouldn’t you? Yet she stays alive to hurt others throughout the story. Funny, I prefer Carmen. She may be tough but she doesn’t hide it. Who is hiding her or his true self? Thank goodness for Doogie. He really found the winning entry in the end. Yeah Doogie Hooray!

The much beloved Ozzie is the one who is found murdered instead. It is baffling everyone to figure out who killed him. It could be his business partner? Is it? Could a business that is trying to control other businesses be responsible? Maybe. Could it be for a personal reason? No one is exactly sure and the local sheriff, Doogie is getting pressure from all sides to sift through the suspects and catch the chloroforming crook.

Everything comes to a head when the Cackleberry Club hosts the Cake Party. There is a surprise winner and a new friend is made when some cake is eaten when it is supposed to be saved and Nadine supplies a replacement. That was so sweet… Ozzie could tell you that the sweeter that icing can appear, that sweetness can prove deadly.

I love all of the characters and how well they jell together probably even more than I loved the plot. The plot was well written and kept me guessing and that always makes a good mystery, right?

One last fun note, doesn’t Suzanne look yummy thanks to the hairdresser and make-up artist that Carmen hires for her opening day?

Reviewed by Wendi Chapman.