a perfect read for readers who like books that should not be taken seriously, at all.

A man is murdered at the mall where Jo works a coffee stand. A to-go cup from Jo's coffee stand is found at the scene of the crime and it looks like it held black coffee. Jo remembers all four customers that ordered black coffee that morning (of fifty customers) and helps the police with a list of suspects. But after the wife of the murdered man is taken in for questioning, Jo decides to do some investigating herself.

I had to stop reading at several points because the simplistic nature of the dialogue or the disregard for proper police procedure got to me. Really, the police should be more skeptic about whether Jo remembers all her customers correctly. Doesn't that mall have CC TV? That could have more reliable information about who went into the bathroom around the time the dead man went in.

Death of a Bean Counter is the first book I read in the Maggy Thorsen Mystery series, and I’m a fan.

The narrator has a delightful tone of voice. A little bit snarky. Which is what I like. I kept reading passages out loud to my partner. One of my favourites is: ’I like oaky Chardonnay, so sue me.’ Or go to somebody else’s house.

The bean counter of the title is a not so nice financial advisor, who soon after his death turns out to have swindle some money he was supposed to invest, didn’t pay suppliers or his staff very punctually (if at all) and was about to disinherit his kids. That makes for a long list of suspects to go through.

The only down side to this book would be that it is relatively short (176 pages, where most cozies are between 225-275), but that is probably because all the unnecessary fluff was cut out; in the first scene, after the main characters are established - for new readers like me - the cops walk in and announce there has been a murder. Quickly to the point, I like that too.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

Okay story, but I'm in no hurry to find the other books in the series. Quite possibly I'm getting fed up with women coming new into town and immediately hitting it off with a local police officer, who always happens to be single too. While they date, murder after murder happens and the cop tells the woman, repeatedly, not to get involved. Then I'm thinking: why are they dating? Why is this woman seeing someone that tells her what to do and what not to do? And why is this cop continuing to spend time with someone that could cause trouble for them in their work? Possibly even jeopardize the criminal proscution of a murderer?

Or maybe it was just this book, where everyone had love trouble and our sleuth spent as much time wondering about who was the murderer as fretting about whether her cop boyfriend was still her cop boyfriend.

The story is straightforward: obnoxious person gets killed; police suspect everyone that argued with the victim prior to the murder. Apparently, that is called looking at the evidence. I'm never sure whether the cop should be sent back to cop school to relearn the concept of circumstancial evidence and you need a lot of it to make a case, or back to elementary school to relearn how to add up things (argument + walking with scissors does not add up to stabbedy-stab).

I know it's a cozy and therefore doesn't have violence or gore in it. But if the murder victim was stabbed, I expect there to be some blood on the murderer's clothes. It should be mentioned, even if the phrase 'splatter pattern' is too gorey for a cozy. It would have ruled out one or two of the suspects. Unless everyone was wearing very dark clothes.

Callie was an okay character, but I don't think I liked any of the others. At least I didn't like her cop boyfriend Ace. And I didn't much care for his sister either. I didn't believe Iphy as a woman in her seventies. Fifties, sure, seventies, not so much. (Or is seventy the new fifty?)

Once again I am at a loss what the title of the book has to do with the story. No one in the book drank chamomile. The murder victim didn't even drink tea; he was offered coffee. One last gripe: the people who work for Book Tea are called Helpers. Which sounds like they are helping out rather then getting paid to do a job.

I read an ARC through Netgalley.

I didn't like Clare; she was too pedantic about everything, not just the proper way to make coffee, but other topics too. It felt like she thought herself better people. It got her into an amusing conversation with Frenchman Eduardo who claims that most people in America decide what they like by the brand name (package not contents), where Clare argues that Americans care about the quality and he must be thinking about Europeans who believe aristocracy at face value. Amusing mainly for what was not said: that Americans are not exactly know for their good tastes and that the French killed their aristocracy.

In any case, it made the story drag: 150 pages in and we've just gone to bed on day one. But the book completely lost out on getting more than two stars when Clare learned from dr. Foo about Annabelle's medical condition. Doctors should not discuss their patients with strangers. An employer, even a caring one, falls in the category stranger.

I like this is the first in the series but the story is not about the main character making a few life changing decisions (or they are made for her) and she starts a new life. The life changing events happened a few years before the story starts. The MC has even met the detective in charge already.

My likes stopped soon after that. The police detective told Vivian to “butt out” when she advised her friend to have a lawyer present during questioning - which could possibly be considered denying a suspect access to legal counsel. Bad form if the police do that. Then Vivian claims she knows how to go about an investigation because she’s “read enough mystery novels.”

Cozy mysteries are a poor choice when it comes to crime investigation text books.

Badly plotted stories, however, can have a certain entertainment value. (If not in the actual story, then at least in writing a fitting review.) Which is reason enough to read on. I had to put this book aside often, though, to be able to deal with the stupid.

The story is told mostly in close third person from Vivian’s point of view, and some of it in close third person from detective Messina’s POV. This rarely works well in women’s fiction. The men are already idiots from the woman’s perspective. They’re even bigger idiots when they get their own perspective. As is the case here.

Messina is convinced the most logical explanation for a man to be killed is to be killed by his ex-wife. In a jealous rage. While the victim is described as muscular. It would have been his sole line of investigation had there not been something about the woman. Ugh.

I might have been able to accept his questioning of Jenna in regard to killing her ex-husband if there had been any evidence other than that she was seen at the hotel where her ex got killed. So were a dozen or so other people, I am sure. A few hours after the murder, the cop should still be open to all possibilities and question Jenna as a possible witness. As an ex-wife she might know about the sort of company he keeps and any illegal business he was involved in. But to assume a woman kills her ex because she’s jealous, when she did not kill him over the affairs he had during their marriage, that takes some suspension of disbelieve on my part.

Yet, there is a reporter that buys into the same story. For real? I thought the whole point of a crime reporter was to question the official reading. If they repeat the police’s story they are spokespersons, not journalists.

*facepalm*

Anyway, when the professionals are clearly incompetent, it’s no wonder the amateurs - Vivian and her employees - set out to investigate the murder of Dean themselves and to clear Jenna’s name.

I’m not much impressed by the way Vivian, Jenna and Gracie go about their investigation. Vivian’s style is confrontational to say the least (and none of the people she confronts should be playing poker). Very unlikely I will pick up another in this series.

Quirky is probably the best word to describe this story.

When taking out the trash after work, Zoey Zastrow stumbles across a human skull and an employee card. When the skull moves Zoey runs home, but reports her find to the police the next day. By then, the skull is gone. The police dig around some - but don’t look in the trash - and when they find no further human remains the chief concludes there is no case.

New on the force detective Grayson Rivers believes Zoey there was a skull and when off the clock he helps her investigate the missing employee that had the employee card. Both make the assumption that because the skull and card were found together, they belong together.

Zoey starts asking around about Ginny Jones. This makes someone uncomfortable and they leave messages for Zoey to stop her investigation. Which Zoey, of course doesn’t. She does take some time to care for a stray dog and to paint Grayson’s apartment, and to lament the fact that because of their age difference he doesn’t want to date her.

The mystery was rather straight forward. Anyone with interesting things to say or show about Ginny pretty much just walks through the door (or waits for Zoey at her door).

The back and forth between the characters was amusing in the first chapter, but later on it got repetitive, tiresome and annoying. And I didn't care much for Grayson past chapter three.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

I learned something today, while reading A Shot of Murder: I like cozy mysteries to be set in happy places where people actually want to live (despite the high murder rate). Not some place where everything is depressing and people seem to have actually given up trying to make a go of it.

Not very surprising Charlotte left the town of Gett at the soonest opportunity. Ten years later she's back to take care of her grandfather after he had a heart-attack. For that and other reasons, it's not a happy return, and then she finds a body in a cask of whiskey and her grandfather is arrested on suspicion of murder.

The plot is interesting and kept me curious. The description of the surroundings, the people and the food made me depressed.

And a few things annoyed me: Charlotte keeps knocking over things that are way bigger than her. She knocks over a cask of whiskey (filled with body and whiskey, that should be more than 500 pounds. Not something you'd knock over accidentally). She manages to push the sheriff out of his seat by merely getting up.
Charlotte seems to have gone to high-school with most of the people that get a speaking part in this story. That makes no sense as the murder did not take place at a class reunion.
Charlotte has a GPA of 4.0. This doesn't really mesh with the fact she chose a career she's not actually very good at (or seems to enjoy much).

A read and ARC through NetGalley.

Heeft alle elementen van een cozy mysterie: amateur speurneus, inbreken om bewijs te verzamelen, bedreigingen door de moordenaar, de moordenaar benaderen voordat de politie er is. Maar ook was er iets bijzonders: ik vond het verhaal af en toe spannend.

Beetje jammer van de Nederlandse vertaling die sommige uitdrukkingen knullig vertaalde.