Here are 4 books that Samuel Craddock Mystery fans have personally recommended once you finish the Samuel Craddock Mystery series.
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Born in Ohio, transplanted to Northern California, Iâve played many roles in life, including college teacher, environmental writer, urban planner, political activist, and mom. In the evening, when my body aches with tiredness, but my brain wonât stop churning on whatever subject I wrestled with that day, I love a good but âmeatyâ little cozyâone with a clever puzzle, something to make me smile, and a secondary theme that goes a bit into an important, really engaging topic. Then I snuggle down and enjoy my kind of decompression reading. After retirement, I started to write my own âcozies plus.â I hope you enjoy my picks.
I discovered Kirschman through her non-fictionâa book called I Love a Cop: What Police Families Need to Knowâwhen I was working on my first mystery.
Later I discovered she also writes a darned good story herself. Like this one, featuring Dot Meyerhoff, newly hired police psychologist. Dotâs job? Help the police cope better with their stressâthose daily dangers, risks, uglinesses.
First clientâBen Gomez, a rookie who just encountered his first corpse. He strikes Dot as a little too sensitive. When Ben becomes a corpse himself, it looks like another cop suicide. Shouldnât Dot have seen this coming? But she didnât.
The secondary theme is significant and well handled: the prevalence of police suicide. I learned a lot. Hint: itâs a cozy, not a police procedural.
Dot Meyerhoff has barely settled into her new job as a psychologist for the Kenilworth Police Department when Ben Gomez, a troubled young rookie that she tries to counsel, commits suicide without any warning and leaves a note blaming her. Overnight, her promising new start becomes a nightmare. At stake is her job, her reputation, her license to practice, and her already battered sense of self-worth. Dot resolves to find out not just what led Ben to kill himself, but why her psychologist exhusband, the man she most wants to avoid, recommended that Ben be hired in the first place.âŚ
Born in Ohio, transplanted to Northern California, Iâve played many roles in life, including college teacher, environmental writer, urban planner, political activist, and mom. In the evening, when my body aches with tiredness, but my brain wonât stop churning on whatever subject I wrestled with that day, I love a good but âmeatyâ little cozyâone with a clever puzzle, something to make me smile, and a secondary theme that goes a bit into an important, really engaging topic. Then I snuggle down and enjoy my kind of decompression reading. After retirement, I started to write my own âcozies plus.â I hope you enjoy my picks.
I have liked all the Gamache books, but this one blew me away.
Not just another clever puzzle-solving entertainment (which it is). Itâs also a compelling meditation on the ethics of free speech in our world today as we struggle with a pandemic and elect autocrats into seats of power.
And this isnât just any free speech, but speech coolly advocating for euthanizing the elderly and disabled, because caring for them is too expensive, and a wasteâtheyâll die anyway and leave society with much-reduced ability to care for those with a real chance to survive.
This speaker is a reputable academic, popular, and with hard data to support her position. Which is why someone wants to kill her. Which is why Gamache is brought in.
The incredible new book in Louise Penny's #1 bestselling Chief Inspector Gamache series.
When Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is asked to provide crowd control at a statistics lecture given at the Universite de l'Estrie in Quebec, he is dubious. Why ask the head of homicide to provide security for what sounds like a minor, even mundane lecture?
But dangerous ideas about who deserves to live in order for society to thrive are rapidly gaining popularity, fuelled by the research of the eminent Professor Abigail Robinson. Yet for every person seduced by her theories there is another who is horrified byâŚ
Iâve spent my life recreating myself as many times as Madonna. If things arenât working, I move on to something new. Iâll go to classes, learn something else, change careers, and struggle the whole way as I look for pieces of life that fit the puzzle of me. It takes me a lot longer to read so when I try to diversify my bookshelf and donât always stick to my genre (as the professionals tell an author to do). What I âstick toâ is finding female characters who struggle and want to give up, but somehow, something deep inside them makes them move forward one step at a time.
Gethsemane Brown is a vibrant, ambitious, and brave. Sheâll strike out anywhere in the world to be a Maestra as long as her life is filled with music.
The offers arenât what she would like and takes a job in an Irish boysâ academy. The boys were rebellious (of course they are). The school wonât support her recommendations. As the only black woman in the village (and an American), the entire town knew her business before she could even unpack her boxes.
Readers should be prepared for a touch of the paranormal here. Gethsemane lives in a haunted house. Despite this quirk, the mystery is completely grounded in the realism of the town, its people, the church, etc.Â
âThe captivating southwestern Irish countryside adds a delightful element to this paranormal series launch. Gethsemane is an appealing protagonist who is doing the best she can against overwhelming odds.â â Library Journal (starred review) With few other options, African-American classical musician Gethsemane Brown accepts a less-than-ideal position turning a group of rowdy schoolboys into an award-winning orchestra. Stranded without luggage or money in the Irish countryside, she figures any job is better than none. The perk? Housesitting a lovely cliffside cottage. The catch? The ghost of the cottageâs murdered owner haunts the place. Falsely accused of killing his wife (andâŚ
Itâs just my favorite trope, thatâs all: the character who isnât what he seems. I love the deception, I love the complications, I love the clues dropped along the way, I love the big reveal. I love the sensation I get when I, the reader, know just a little bit more than the characters do but still feel surprised and wonder when the whole truth is unveiled. When I sit down to write, I know I want to create that exact sensation in my readers.
I read this 1933 mystery novel as a teen, and it might have begun my love affair with the hero in disguise. In this book, we meet Death Bredon, a newly hired copywriter at Pymâs Publicity. We know, of course, that he is Lord Peter Wimsey in disguise, but we donât know why the aristocratic amateur detective is pretending to be a working Joe.
The mystery is flawless; the ad agency setting is delightful; the banter is witty; and the climactic cricket match, in which our disguised hero lets his mask slip, is delicious.
The tenth book in Dorothy L Sayers' classic Lord Peter Wimsey series, introduced by bestselling crime writer Peter Robinson - a must-read for fans of Agatha Christie's Poirot and Margery Allingham's Campion Mysteries.
Victor Dean fell to his death on the stairs of Pym's Advertising Agency, but no one seems to be sorry. Until an inquisitive new copywriter joins the firm and asks some awkward questions...
Disguised as his disreputable cousin Death Bredon, Lord Peter Wimsey takes a job - one that soon draws him into a vicious network of blackmailers and drugâŚ
