It’s been a busy week. As I said, my family was here on Monday, and I’m currently working on a big Treasures in My Closet post for Friday. That takes time from reading. So, I’m going to give you a peek, quite a far ahead. M.S. Greene’s There’s No Murder Like Show Murder is a July release that I just finished for review. It’s a terrific launch to a new cozy series set behind the scenes at a regional theater in Connecticut. Behind the scenes because the amateur sleuth, Tasha Weaver, is head of the costume shop. If you love live theater, you might want to watch for this one. I’ll remind you close to release date.
Here’s the publisher’s blurb.
Tasha Weaver is most at home in the cozy backstage world of the Eastbrook Playhouse. As the costume shop head at the charming regional theater, she’s used to watching dramatic acts of love and revenge from the shadows. But when Kurt Mozer—the insufferable Broadway reject who stars in their production of Annie Get Your Gun—is shot center stage, the spotlight turns to her.
Everyone knows Kurt was difficult to work with, and after he got into a fight with both director Marnie Mason and artistic leader Arthur Winston, he promptly decided to quit the show. In deep financial trouble, the Eastbrook Playhouse depended on a big name like Kurt to keep afloat. With reporters coming in from the Big Apple to Tasha’s little corner of Connecticut, she realizes it’s up to her to save their local theater and keep her community safe. After all, the show must go on…but what do you do when the killer could very well be one of your loved ones?
With the help of her friends, her long-time crush Bruno Machado, and her feline colleague Hilly, Tasha must catch a murderer before the shining lights of the playhouse go out forever.
M.S. Greene knows what he’s writing about. His biography says, “M.S. Greene is a playwright, lyricist, screenwriter, novelist, and overall theatre nerd living the dream in New York City. Under his full name – Matthew Greene – his scripts have been produced on both coasts and several places in between. When he’s not hunched over a keyboard, he can be found teaching, directing, and working to close the arts education gap with some of the city’s most talented young people. He lives in Manhattan with his boyfriend and far too many books.” (Are there “far too many books”?)
There’s No Murder Like Show Murder by M.S. Greene. Crooked Lane Books, July 2024. ISBN 9781639108190 (hardcover), 288p.
I am a sucker for great covers like that!
It’s a great cover, isn’t it, Carol?
I hope it takes place in an actual town in Connecticut as I find it very annoying when they make up a place. Not sure if writer’s are too lazy to do background or what. Recently read one with a totally made up town and it bugged me the whole time I was reading it.
I suspect it’s made up, Donna. On the other hand, my sister and I read several books by an author (to remain unnamed) who used an actual location, but failed in two books to even mention the landmark that made the location famous. We quit reading the series. Someone didn’t bother to do research. I’d rather read about a made up town than one I know well when the author can’t be bothered.
I am SO with you, Lesa. And there is, to me, a very big difference. For example – Three Pines is made up, and we love it.
Oh, yes, Kaye. In fact, we’d all like to move to Three Pines, if they’d have us. Even me, as much as I hate winter and snow. But, I’d love the Bistro. Maybe they’d just let me permanently rent a room there.
Yes! Bet they would! How fun! Let’s inquire ❤
Yes I agree when it is totally made up like Three Pines that is fine. But sometimes the author is indicating its a real place and even give names of highways to get there etc and it doesn’t exist! That’s what I encountered recently with directions from New York City to this totally made up place in CT (which is where I live).