Cute and Sweet "Cozy" Mystery: SPOON TO BE DEAD by Dana Mentink

I review (and savor) a lot of dark mysteries. Well, the darkness often comes with the nature of crime! But not always ...

Suppose you owned a darling little ice cream shop in, let's say, Oregon -- and winter was around the corner. Would you be worried? Trinidad Jones surely is, as she anticipates a drop in the sales of her very creative specialties. So to make sure the Shimmy and Shake stays in business and her unusual but sweet employees get paid, she'll compete for a catering slot: a holiday party on a steamboat owned by Leonard Pinkerton, who can certainly afford her prices.

In this third in her delicious "Shake Shop Mystery" series, Dana Mentink offers a set-up that's far more complex than just the sugary side of an ice cream business, though. Trinidad is one of three former wives of the charming but cheating Gabe Bigley, who's currently in jail, since his fraudulent dealings extend to more than just these women. Against the odds, the three of them have become friends and all live in the same town. (That's the only thing you really need to know from the two earlier books in the series.)

So when Gabe, apparently paroled, stumbles through the door of the ice cream shop with blood on his clothing and says something about having killed someone—then passes out—the immediate disruption hits a lot of lives all at once. Moments later, the victim turns out to be Trinidad's friend and ally, Oscar.

The day had started out with such promise. Now Oscar had been run down, her ex-husband was involved, and there was an orphaned parrot nesting above her rib cage. Oh my giddy aunt indeed, Trinidad thought as they returned to the Shimmy and Shake Shop.

Mentink offers a network of friendships, sleuthing, and potentially thwarted romance as the small-town mystery leaps toward a dramatic finale. This is a classic "cozy" mystery, packed with as many flavors of sweetness as a banana split. Add it to a stack of books for light and often giggling distraction on a winter afternoon.

A Worthwhile Protagonist Has "Agency" -- Like Dr. Kate, the Vet

Although I hosted a wonderful elderly dog at my home for two months earlier this year, it turned out that I'm not a very skilled dog trainer ... and am getting a bit past learning new tricks myself. It hurt my heart to return the sweet pet who'd come here for a try-her-out visit, but it was the right thing to do, before I either broke a bone by falling while she tugged me along, or lost too much sleep to her eager awareness (bark, bark, bark, growl!) of the other animals around this rural place.

Even without a "companion animal" at hand, I found strong interest in the creatures in the new "Dr. Kate Vet Mystery" from Eileen Brady, released this month: MURDERS OF A FEATHER (Poisoned Pen Press).

As in many a "cozy" mystery series, the complications of crime in this lively tale are paired with Kate Turner's aching heart and hope for romance in time for Valentine's Day. Too bad the new vet in the area, "Dr. Mike," is married with newborn twins, as the two adults work so well together in a barn, meshing one's large-animal skills with the other's deft surgical and medical approaches. This too will turn into a twist of the plot, of course!

The murders Dr. Kate discovers are very human ones, but she'll tug at the strands of the crimes for the sake of both her own staff members and the many related animal emergencies around her, in an upstate New York harsh winter. Ice, snow, and slippery suggestions of motive and means fill the pages in a well-twisted plot with abundant discoveries. Her insistence on "agency" — that is, independence and taking her own direct actions — moves the plot well.

The best part of reading Brady's mysteries is the way she weaves Dr. Kate's animal and owner experiences into the insights that sleuthing requires: "Obsessive love. Jealous vindictive love. You see it in people and in animals that fixate on one person. That one being is all they want, all they need. And when they can't have them—they show their teeth."

Similar to the progress in a true crime investigation, it takes quite a while for Dr. Kate to unwind the final strand she needs. And that, in turn, allows readers more time to meet and enjoy the intriguing pets and farm animals along the way.

Between its charm and its intrigue, MURDERS OF A FEATHER (yes, there are crows involved!) can be a rewarding addition to the winter reading stack, and a handy choice for a holiday gift to an animal-loving friend or mystery aficionado.

And it's so very different from the next book I want to tell you about, which begins also in winter ... in urban Detroit. No pets involved at all, but plenty of love and loyalty, and a deft hand with crime.

A Last Round of Summer Reading: Book Recommendations

I've recently taken photos of leaves turning red and yellow and landing lightly on the back roads or new-mown grass. It's still summer here in Vermont, where mowing the lawn with the walk-behind mower means working up a good sweat, but the cool evenings glitter with shifting constellations. Orion will rise in a few more weeks, and we'll start worrying about frost.

One of the unexpectedly moving crime novels on my summer reading stack has been WHERE THE DEAD SLEEP by Joshua Moehling (Poisoned Pen Press). This is his second book and takes a deeper look into the life of Sheriff Packard, introduced in And There He Kept Her. Significantly, it opens with an "inconsolable" three-legged dog whose nightly share of Packard's bed was taken by a visiting lover. Within a few paragraphs, it's already clear that Packard isn't handling his personal life well, while trying to be a small town's first gay (acting) sheriff. This personal confusion inevitably interferes in his crimesolving, and in his insight into why a local gambler turns up murdered in a home invasion.

Moehling is a gifted storyteller who sets up situations that clarify how greed, anger, and frustrated love can all become motives for crime. Packard's strengths depend on his ability to enlist loyalty and honesty from people who may not readily offer them. He also captures a twist of information and character in a few well chosen words, as in this fragment of a poker game: "When the river card turned, Jim raised and Richard folded. Alan shuffled his chips, then finally called. Jim took the hand with a three of a kind. Alan tossed his cards, showing a low pair." Minutes later, Packard will clear the high-stakes table with a haul of $75,000 that he can't accept, but that buys him enough respect to get some of the truth of the crime at last.

This book interfered seriously with my work plans. I wish you the same experience.

Also in the August heap has been EVERGREEN, the second crime novel of Japanese internment and anti-Asian prejudice surrounding World War II, by Naomi Hirahara and published by Soho Crime, imprint of Soho Press. I wasn't a huge fan of Hirahara's first, Clark and Division, finding it a bit too stilted (tasting like a translation despite the California birth and life of the author) and without a lot of character. 

To my delight, I found Evergreen smoothly written, intriguing, with strong development of determined Aki Ito and her struggles with both family and the unwelcoming nation, and with a complex strand of crimes involving both the plight of "second-class citizens" and the postwar new growth of America. Here's one of the polished turning points as an example:

The next meeting was going to be held in the Japanese-operated flower market on Wall Street in a few weeks.

"It's going to take time, Pop," I said.

"Those son-of-a-bitches," my father cursed. "They are not going to get away with it."

I sat quietly in the passenger seat, clutching my pocketbook. I knew that he wasn't just talking about the produce market. I couldn't bear to say out loud what I felt: Pop, they already have.

You'll want this one for any collection that circles World War II and the aftermath, or hate crimes, or American history, as well as Japanese culture and well-plotted urban crime fiction.

Later this evening I'll be working on my new memoir segment at Medium; I really enjoyed sharing some writing tips with other authors on the platform last weekend, using my extensive reviewing background to point to what makes a strong piece of writing and offering tried-and-true tips to get there. Every day, I'm aiming to deepen my own writing; it gets easier to make time after Vermont's first serious frost arrives, but until then, I've got a yard and garden to tend, as well.