Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman

June 13, 2025

According to Laura Lippman, Mrs. Muriel Blossom first appeared in the novel Another Thing to Fall in 2008. Lippman admits readers occasionally called her out for being ageist and anti-fat when it came to Mrs. Blossom, who did surveillance for PI Tess Monaghan at one...

The Antique Hunter’s Death on the Red Sea by C.L. Miller

February 18, 2025

My only complaint about C.L. Miller’s The Antique Hunter’s Death on the Red Sea was the large number of characters. You might want to keep score as you’re reading it. Other than that, it’s a fast-paced mystery set in the world of black market...

Loose Lips by Kemper Donovan

January 21, 2025

Kemper Donovan has achieved that rare feat. His second Ghostwriter mystery is better than his first, The Busy Body, in my opinion. Loose Lips takes the Ghostwriter, now working under the pseudonym Belle Currer, on a cruise with 300 suspects. As Belle Currer, the...

Bert and Mamie Take a Cruise by John Keyse-Walker

March 07, 2023

Well, John Keyse-Walker’s Bert and Mamie Take a Cruise wasn’t at all what I expected. I thought I would be reading a cozy armchair traveler mystery set in 1939. Well, yes and no. There’s much more foreshadowing of World War II than I expected. There...

Murder on “B” Deck by Vincent Starrett

January 02, 2022

Murder on “B” Deck was Vincent Starrett’s first mystery novel. While his best known book was The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, according to Starrett expert Ray Betzner, Murder on “B” Deck was his first mystery, and the one that...