The Best Cozy Mystery Series You're Not Reading...YET!
By now, close to everyone who reads cozy mysteries has heard about (and probably read) Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. Maybe that blockbuster was your first foray into cozy mysteries — traditional mysteries with none of the gore, cursing or sexual content of their more edgy counterparts in crime and thriller. Now, you're looking for additional titles to add to your library... Maybe you feel like you've read every cozy mystery worth reading, but you're still hungry for more?
We can help! Here's a list of cozy mystery series you might not have heard of, but you don't want to miss! What do all these books have in common? They're all cozy mysteries and they're all filled with notch-above writing and characters you'll never forget!
Pineapple Lies
(Pineapple Port Cozy Mysteries Book 1) - By Amy Vansant
This 14-book cozy mystery series written by Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author Amy Vansant, has readers howling with laughter and falling in love with its lovable (and crazy) characters. The heartwarming relationships between young and old and the quirky world of loveable characters will make Pineapple Port Mysteries one of your new favorite series. Bonus: you'll never see the ending coming!
"Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman is huge right now, and if you like that you will love Pineapple Lies. Personally, I have to say I enjoyed this even more." - author Tommy Ueland
As an orphan adopted by one of Florida's 55+ communities, Charlotte never expected life to be wild. Golf cart racing with her surrogate mothers Mariska and Darla was about as nutty as life got...until she found the hot pawnbroker's mom buried in her backyard.
Talk about making a lousy first impression...
Armed with nothing but her wits, Pineapple Port's questionable cast of characters, and a growing crush, Charlotte is determined to solve the mystery of Declan's mother's murder.
Hey, at least this guy's skeletons aren't in his closet.
"I absolutely LOVE this series. Thank you, Amy, for creating such a wonderful universe of great characters. I love how there always seems to be multiple storylines that intertwine. It's nice to be able to escape reality into a book. I appreciate it!" --- Amazon Reader ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Amy is one of my favorite authors. I highly recommend all of her books. No matter what genre she writes in, she manages to create books that demand that the pages be immediately turned to find out what happened because you really care about the characters." ~ Dianne Harman, USA Today and Amazon Chart #1 Bestselling Author
"Too much!! Wow! I don't think I've had so much laughter and fun in a cozy mystery ever! " - Amazon Reader ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"One of the best surprise ending I have read.." - Amazon Vine Voice Reader ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Death Turns a Trick by Julie Smith
The first book in a six-book cozy mystery series by an Edgar Award Winner. Julie Smith's writing and comedic timing can't be beaten!
"Funny and witty, with a clever, outspoken heroine." -Library Journal
A ROLLICKING TALE OF MURDER, ROMANCE, AND A BORDELLO…
Rebecca Schwartz, nice Jewish lawyer with a few too many fantasies, is happily playing the piano in a whorehouse when she suddenly finds herself assigned to make sure a near-naked state senator escapes a police raid. That dirty job done, a lovely evening turns even more delightful when she’s picked up by the cops and spends the next two hours at the Hall of Justice. Could this day get any worse? Of course! Guess who arrives home to find a dead hooker on her living room floor?
Handsome Parker Phillips, Rebecca’s new beau and the most attractive man she’s met in ages, is arrested for the murder. (Worse, she suspects he might actually have done it.)
On the plus side, another very attractive man is following the case--reporter Rob Burns of the San Francisco Chronicle, a possible ally. And there are other possibilities.
The Aura - by Carrie Bedford
Like a little paranormal in your cozy mysteries? Try The Aura by Carrie Beford. Readers are eating up this traditional British mystery with a twist of the unknown!
"...a terrific book with a likable protagonist, skilled plotting and a supernatural spin. This gripping mystery had me hooked from the first chapter." -Janet Dawson, author of the Jeri Howard series
SHE KNOWS WHO'S GOING TO DIE! BUT NO ONE WILL BELIEVE HER...
Life spins out of control for London architect Kate Benedict when she sees a dancing aura above certain people’s heads that seems to signal death. Suddenly she’s psychic. But that can't be! Psychic’s not acceptable in her circle, where the supernatural is strictly for the superstitious. And yet…people are dying. People close to her.
Kate's tentative attempts to talk about her new-found metaphysical gift are met with eye rolls, so much so that she can’t even tell the nice Scotland Yard detective who's investigating the death of a close friend, Rebecca Williams. And now Rebecca’s neighbor has an aura.
So what's Kate to do but try to save him by turning detective herself? A break-in and attack on her boyfriend confirm that the murderer’s catching on that Kate knows too much. But he (or maybe she) has no idea that what Kate knows is a little on the paranormal side.
Fans of traditional British mysteries (and female sleuths) will love watching competent, reasonable Kate try to harness supernatural abilities she not only doesn't understand, she doesn't even believe in! And those who love international mysteries will particularly enjoy the vivid scenes in Italy, where the story begins and, in some ways, ends.
"Carrie Bedford is a real find, and The Aura is engaging paranormal suspense ... Bedford is a fine writer, an accomplished novelist, and a terrific storyteller whose characters ring true and pull us deep into the mystery." -Shelley Singer, author of the Jake Samson-Rosie Vicente mystery series and Torch Song, first in the Blackjack near-future thriller series.
Crooked Man: A Hard-Boiled but Humorous New Orleans Mystery (Tubby Dubonnet Series #1) by Tony Dunbar
If you like cozy mystery series, you might like to try a "Brozy" - cozy mystery series written with a more masculine twist. The lead characters probably won't be sewing or baking, but that doesn't mean this isn't a rollicking good— and still cozy—mystery! Tony Dunbar has proven himself a mastery of the brozy mystery.
IF A GYM BAG OF CASH FELL INTO YOUR HANDS, WHAT WOULD YOU DO TO KEEP IT?
The FIRST offbeat mystery in the TUBBY DUBONNET series by Anthony- and Edgar-nominated author Tony Dunbar
A simple man with a refined palate, maverick New Orleans lawyer Tubby Dubonnet has a penchant for fishing, Old Fashioneds, off-track betting, and fighting evil while passing a good time. His clients are all renegades from the asylum (aka Orleans Parish), including a transvestite entertainer, a buxom deadbeat blonde, a doctor who refers his own patients to a malpractice lawyer, and a Mardi Gras reveler who drives a float shaped like a giant crawfish pot.
He also has his hands full with an ex-wife and three teenage daughters, who are experts in the art of wrapping Tubby around their little fingers. And somehow, between work and family, Tubby finds time to sample the highs and lows of idiosyncratic Crescent City cuisine, from trout meuniere amandine and French roast coffee with chicory to shrimp po-boys and homemade pecan pralines.
Tubby's new client is Darryl Alvarez, the manager of a local nightclub who's been caught unloading marijuana from a shrimp boat. At their first meeting, Darryl entrusts Tubby with an ordinary-looking blue gym bag. But after Darryl's unfortunate demise, Tubby realizes he must tighten his grasp on the gym bag -- and its million-dollar contents.
Tubby can’t just give up the cash. But if he gets caught, he’ll be in jail. And if the wrong people catch him, he’ll wish he was.
Hurricane Season: Florida Panhandle Mystery # 1 by Michaela Thompson
We've had old/young cozy mysteries, romantic cozy mysteries, paranormal cozy mysteries and a brozy... how about a classic historical cozy lauded by none other than John D. MacDonald himself?
JOHN D. MACDONALD said: “I enjoyed the book. It has real people in a real place, factors which seem to be ever more rare these days—even though it is the only way to create a real suspension of disbelief.”
A STORM, AN ILLICIT LOVE AFFAIR, AND MOONSHINE… (actually, two illicit love affairs)
The 1950s fairly leap off the page in this classic cozy mystery set in northern Florida in the Eisenhower era, complete with Johnny Ray on the jukebox and a Womanless Wedding—this one interrupted by an explosion at a moonshine still. Lily Trulock, owner of Trulock’s Grocery & Marine Supply, leads a pretty quiet life until a stranger comes to town. The new guy’s not what he appears, but then, some of St. Elmo’s residents aren’t either.
Before she can say, “down the hatch,” Lily’s at the center of a vicious murder and a no-holds-barred bootlegging war—and a nasty storm’s on the way. This is a vibrant, atmospheric, powerful novel—as filled with energy, mystery, and motion as a hurricane.
Hurricane Season is as much a richly-detailed, spot-on historical as a mystery, widely praised by masters of the genre and reviewers alike for its pitch-perfect period feel and fine, spare writing.
"A remarkable, compelling first novel ... a storm of a story." -The Washington Post
"This is a remarkable book which deserves readers from far beyond the ranks of mystery fans." -The San Francisco Chronicle/Examiner
P.D. JAMES said: “(Michaela Thompson) knows how to create that sense of place, which is so important to any novel but particularly to crime fiction; her characters are believable men and women in a real world, her mystery is credible, and in Lily Trulock she has created a middle-aged heroine who is both original and sympathetic.”
