Here are 9 books that Southern Cousins Mysteries fans have personally recommended once you finish the Southern Cousins Mysteries series.
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Prior to my becoming a cozy mystery author, I was a ladies’ apparel sales rep traveling a territory in the deep southern states. During my four-year stint I spent a great deal of time in a variety of southern cities and small towns. I interacted with progressive as well as traditional, conservative people. My experiences gave me a unique perspective with respect to the social mores and hierarchy of Southern society.
Maybe it’s because I had to do it throughout my career as a sales exec in a historically male-dominated industry before I became an author, that I am a hopeless sap for a heroine who picks herself up no matter how many times she gets knocked down.
So, it is no surprise that Savannah, Georgia-based recent divorcee Reagan Summerside has a special place in my heart. Reagan, left with almost nothing, thanks to the ruthless tactics of her husband’s divorce lawyer, discovers the bimbo her ex dumped her for dead in her former Lexus.
I cheered the consignment shop owner on as she relentlessly searched for the murderer.
There's always something to gossip about in Savannah, Georgia, and Reagan Summerside always seems to be in the middle of it. She's busy enough running her consignment shop, The Prissy Fox, with her vivacious Auntie KiKi, but now the gossip-and the sales-are about to pick up after a gruesome discovery...
Reagan's messy divorce has left her with nothing but a run-down Victorian and a bunch of designer clothes. Strapped for cash, Reagan makes use of the two things she has left, turning the first floor of her home into a consignment shop and filling it with the remnants of her…
Prior to my becoming a cozy mystery author, I was a ladies’ apparel sales rep traveling a territory in the deep southern states. During my four-year stint I spent a great deal of time in a variety of southern cities and small towns. I interacted with progressive as well as traditional, conservative people. My experiences gave me a unique perspective with respect to the social mores and hierarchy of Southern society.
Newly widowed Miss Julia, a pillar of her small southern community, is the poster child for my wise Nana’s theory that things never turn out the way you think they will when she finds herself smack dab in the center of a smarmy love triangle scandal involving her late husband.
I adore Miss Julia’s razer-sharp wit as she morphs from a clueless stuffed shirt into an endearingly strong southern woman who doesn’t take crap from anyone.
I am a big fan of a fast-paced tale that deftly weaves comic characters through a plot wrought with hand-wringing angst. Miss Julia and her cast of crazy characters does not disappoint.
Miss Julia, a recently bereaved and newly wealthy widow, is only slightly bemused when one Hazel Marie Puckett appears at her door with a youngster in tow and unceremoniously announces that the child is the bastard son of Miss Julia's late husband. Suddenly, this longtime church member and pillar of her small Southern community finds herself in the center of an unseemly scandal-and the guardian of a wan nine-year-old whose mere presence turns her life upside down.
With razor-sharp wit and perfect "Steel Magnolia" poise, Miss Julia speaks her mind indeed-about a robbery, a kidnapping, and the other disgraceful events…
Prior to my becoming a cozy mystery author, I was a ladies’ apparel sales rep traveling a territory in the deep southern states. During my four-year stint I spent a great deal of time in a variety of southern cities and small towns. I interacted with progressive as well as traditional, conservative people. My experiences gave me a unique perspective with respect to the social mores and hierarchy of Southern society.
Maybe it’s because I am naturally curious and ask a lot of questions, I’m a sucker for a protagonist who sticks her nose everywhere it doesn’t belong.
South Florida hairstylist Marla Shore is already having a bad hair day when one of her clients dies in the shampoo chair at her salon. Then Detective Dalton Vail accuses Marla of putting poison in the woman’s coffee creamer. Grumpy Bertha Kravitz might not have been Marla’s favorite customer, but the hairstylist wouldn’t have murdered the lady.
I love that no matter how much danger she gets herself into, Marla stands up for herself and leaves no stone unturned when she decides it’s up to her to unmask the real killer.
Meet Marla Shore, a Florida hairstylist and salon owner with a knack for styling hair and solving mysteries.
Hairstylist Marla Shore is already having a bad hair day when one of her clients dies in the shampoo chair at her salon. Then Detective Dalton Vail accuses her of putting poison in the wealthy woman's coffee creamer. Grumpy Bertha Kravitz might not have been Marla's favorite customer, but she wouldn't have murdered the lady. With her reputation at stake, Marla decides it's up to her to unmask the killer.
Combing the woman's privileged world for clues, Marla discovers the town is…
I’ve been reading mysteries since I “borrowed” my Grandpa’s Miss Marple’s as an elementary schooler. (And yes, my maiden name really IS Marple) And I’ve always been drawn to smart, competent women characters–even better if they’re funny. Women who do their own fighting and their own detecting and then hand the killer off to the cops with a smile and a great line. These women inspired me–and now I get to write a lady who at least belongs in the room with them!
I love a quirky small-town mystery with screwball comedy, and this one absolutely delivers–with a wonderful twist: the detective is Sheriff Arly Hanks, a woman forced to go home and start over after a meltdown in the big city.
I love Arly’s intelligence and spirit…and the fact that while she has a gun (and even a bullet or two), she doesn’t need more than her wits and the help of the crazy locals–including her own mother–to catch the killer. She’s my favorite funny, badass woman sleuth.
After a crossbow killing at a cheap roadside motel, Ozarks police chief Arly Hanks finds herself investigating her first murder case.
Her marriage over and career gone bust, Arly Hanks flees Manhattan for her hometown: Maggody, Arkansas. In a town this size, nothing much ever happens, so Arly figures she's safe as the town's first female chief of police-until the husband of one of the local barmaids escapes from state prison and heads for town. And that's not all. An EPA official with ties to polluting the local fishing hole has suddenly vanished off the face of the earth.
I grew up on a small farm in Mississippi and discovered the wide world through a movable feast of books provided by the Bookmobile. The hayloft was my favorite reading spot. I could look across the lake to imagine myself in WWII Paris, the frozen tundras of Alaska, or anywhere beyond the pastures where Daddy’s cattle grazed. I fell in love with words when I was eight years old, a dreamer spinning stories inspired by the ones I read between the covers of my beloved books. I still love words and hear their music as they flow onto the pages of the thrillers I currently write.
I confess: I love the book because of the dog, Einstein. But I also love it because Koontz shines a spotlight on the downside and potential harm of technology and spins a classic tale of good versus evil.
I have never forgotten this book, and I read it on publication in 1987. The story is fascinating and different. But it stayed with me because of the quality of the writing and the unexpected use of magical realism. A dog who understands language? Wonderful. And he was a major character, another surprising bonus for me.
I’m a fan of Dean Koontz because his suspense novels always deliver a great story and always rise above the genre.
The No.1 bestselling classic from Dean Koontz, the master of chilling suspense, that will thrill fans of Stephen King and the Odd Thomas series.
They escape from a secret government project: two mutant creatures, both changed utterly from the animals they once were. And no one who encounters them will ever be the same again.
A lonely widower, a ruthless assassin, a beautiful woman, a government agent.
Drawn together in a deadly hunt, all four are inexorably propelled towards a confrontation with an evil beyond human imagining.
The roots of my debut novel Charlesgate Confidentialare in the time I spent in Boston, most notably the three years I lived in the Charlesgate building when it was an Emerson College dormitory. I always wanted to find a way to write about that time, but it wasn’t until I immersed myself in the world of Boston crime—not only the novels of Higgins, Lehane, and company but nonfiction works like Black Massand movies like The Departedand The Town—that I hit on the way to tell my story. I’ll always be excited for new Boston-based crime fiction, and I’m happy to share these recommendations with you.
After Robert B. Parker, Lehane is the most successful and skilled descendant of Eddie Coyle (a debt he acknowledges in his introduction to a reissue of the Higgins book). While you can’t go wrong with any of the entries in his Kenzie/Gennaro detective series (or his later historically-based trilogy), this stand-alone novel about three childhood friends brought back together by a crime one of them may have committed is his most powerful work, as well as the novel that first spurred my interest in trying my hand at Boston-based crime fiction.
This New York Times bestseller from Dennis Lehane is a gripping, unnerving psychological thriller about the effects of a savage killing on three former friends in a tightly knit, blue-collar Boston neighborhood.
When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up to their street. One boy got into the car, two did not, and something terrible happened—something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever.
Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con who owns a corner store. And Dave is trying to…
I’ve always been fascinated by the darker corners of the human mind, such as what drives people to commit unspeakable acts and how others find the strength to face them. As both a neuropsychologist and a thriller author, I explore those questions on the page, weaving together my background in psychology with my love of twisty, character-driven stories. Books where the crimes are as twisted as the minds behind them have shaped my own writing, including my latest novel, Heavy Are the Stones. I read them not just for the suspense, but for the unsettling and raw truths they reveal about us all as humans.
Hannibal Lecter’s silky smooth menace still chills me like no other villain on my shelf.
Silence of the Lambs taught me how to write a terrifying villain with more than enough charisma to start a devoted cult. Every reread of this book hooks me with that hypnotic voice. Hannibal’s character is so persuasive and razor-sharp, I catch myself sympathizing before the dread slams back in.
I love how Thomas Harris forces me to straddle the line between fascination and horror, then shoves me into Clarice Starling’s head for that heart-hammering showdown with Buffalo Bill.
Decades later, for me, no thriller matches its psychological intrigue. It’s a timeless classic that keeps my lights blazing and my imagination deliciously unsettled.
As part of the search for a serial murderer nicknames "Buffalo Bill," FBI trainee Clarice Starling is given an assignment. She must visit a man confined to a high-security facility for the criminally insane and interview him.
That man, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, is a former psychiatrist with unusual tastes and an intense curiosity about the darker corners of the mind. His intimate understanding of the killer and of Clarice herself form the core of Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs--an unforgettable classic of suspense fiction.
I have been fascinated with ghosts since an early age (Casper the Friendly Ghost was a favorite childhood cartoon) because this is the supernatural being that could be in your home right now! I have read numerous ghost stories/novels and have learned all the nuances that spirits can present from poltergeist activity to seances to spiritual possession. I zoom in on those ghost stories where the past is critical to the intent of the haunting spirit, whether it be beneficial or malevolent in nature. As a neuroscientist and author of paranormal fantasy novels, my distinctive background also allows me to approach this genre in a unique way.
This ghost story is in many ways the inspiration for my book.
I love that the ghost of Susie Salmon has a quest from the very beginning that not only deals with an earthly injustice but reveals her prior human nature. It is heart-wrenchingly sad and beautiful at the same time, a dichotomy of emotions that I sought to capture in my book.
The internationally bestselling novel that inspired the acclaimed film directed by Peter Jackson.
With an introduction by Karen Thompson Walker, author of The Age of Miracles.
My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.
In heaven, Susie Salmon can have whatever she wishes for - except what she most wants, which is to be back with the people she loved on earth. In the wake of her murder, Susie watches as her happy suburban family is torn apart by grief; as her friends grow up, fall in…
I came to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1988 to serve as a law clerk for a prominent federal judge (played by Martin Sheen in the movie Selma). I was convinced that the death penalty could be justly administered, and seeing Ted Bundy’s final appeal did little to change my mind. Subsequent cases, however, slowly worked a change in my attitude as I saw an execution’s effect on everyone involved in the process. My passion comes from this behind-the-scenes look at capital punishment in America.
I was shaken to my core not only by Capote’s character study of two different yet partnered killers but also by his behind-the-scenes depiction of the death penalty process. For the first time, I began to see how capital punishment affects all those involved in its machinations.
The chilling true crime 'non-fiction novel' that made Truman Capote's name, In Cold Blood is a seminal work of modern prose, a remarkable synthesis of journalistic skill and powerfully evocative narrative published in Penguin Modern Classics.
Controversial and compelling, In Cold Blood reconstructs the murder in 1959 of a Kansas farmer, his wife and both their children. Truman Capote's comprehensive study of the killings and subsequent investigation explores the circumstances surrounding this terrible crime and the effect it had on those involved. At the centre of his study are the amoral young killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickcock, who, vividly…
