Recommendsday: July Quick Reviews

A slight theme to the post this month – everything is a mystery, two of them are first in series and the other is the first book I’ve read by the author. And yes, I finished this first one after last weeks’ BLCC roundup had gone up or it might have gone in that instead and reduced the amount of Lorac/Carnac books in that one!

Scandalize My Name by Fiona Sinclair

This is one of the more recent BLCC releases (it came out in April) and is one from a much lesser known author who, based on this, really deserves rediscovery. The murder happens at a house in North London that has been divided into flats. While the residents and neighbours are assembling for a 21st birthday party, one of the residents has been killed in the basement. There is no shortage of people who might have wanted the victim dead, and Superintendent Grainger has a tight group of suspects all of whom had motive and opportunity. Sinclair introduces a lot of characters in a hurry at the start of this which might put you off initially, but stick with it and it’s a good and clever read. I skipped back and read the first chapter again after I had read the solution and spotted a few really neat details hidden in plain sight, although it doesn’t really gives you all the clues to be able to solve it yourself.

Six Sweets Under by Sarah Fox

This is a cozy crime novel set in a fictional town in Vermont which is filled with canals and small businesses. Our detective is Becca, a former actress who has moved back to her home town after a spell in Hollywood. She’s taking over her grandparents’ chocolate shop and settling back into small town life when a local man is found dead after having been seen arguing with her grandfather, who becomes one of the main suspects. So, because this is cozy crime, Becca sets out to clear him. This has an interesting setting – lots of canals, lots of boats – but I found the heroine a bit irritating (for example she’s afraid of deep water because her brother told her there was a monster living in it) and the characters didn’t feel as well developed as I would have liked. I picked this up from the cozy crime section in Waterstone’s Piccadilly back in the autumn and I can see that there are two more in the series – but the second of those appears to have changed publishers so I suspect that there will be no more. I enjoyed it enough that I’m not ruling out getting one of the others to help me out with Vermont if I do the 50 States challenge again in 2026.

Flipped for Murder by Maddie Day

This is another first in series, another cozy crime and another of the harder to get states for the 50 states challenge. This time we’re in Indiana, and our detective is Robbie (short for Roberta) who has moved to South Lick in the south of the state after falling in love with the town while visiting her aunt. In this Robbie is opening her new business, a country store and restaurant, but the day after the grand opening, the mayor’s assistant is found dead and Robbie finds herself in the spotlight. This has got a lot going on, particularly with Robbie – she’s a cook and carpenter, she likes puzzles, her mum has recently died and there is a bit of a love triangle going on too. I had the culprit figured out early on but for some reason I had the second book in the series on my kindle (they’re all in KU at the moment which is how I read the first one) so had a read of that as well to see if the mystery in that was harder to solve, and it wasn’t really, but the love triangle seemed to get sorted out. Solidly OK, but not something I’d want to spend a load of money on.

And that’s your lot for this month. As a reminder the Books of the Week in July were Finders Keepers, Not to Be Taken (even more BLCC!), Next Stop Murder, We Three Queens and Death and the Conjurer, making it an incredibly Mystery-centric month when you add this to the mysteries set on film sets and bonus review of the second Gabriel Ward.