Joanne Collings

It’s hard to imagine a more topical cozy mystery than Casey Daniels’ Dead Man Talking: not only is Pepper Martin a detective for ghosts—helping them by solving crimes that keep them from moving on ("I don’t waste my Gift on dumb stuff," she likes to tell those who are trying to locate missing items and people)—but her job as a tour guide at Monroe Street Cemetery in Cleveland is about to involve her in a reality television series for PBS. The show pits two groups against each other. On one side are the genteel ladies of the Historical Society, a group Pepper is none too fond of for personal reasons. That group also includes former supermodel Bianca, who now runs an exclusive boutique that’s just the kind of place Pepper would like to work. On the other are a ragtag group of minor criminal types who have been sentenced to community service. Guess which team Pepper is leading?

This is the fifth in the Pepper Martin series, but have no concerns about jumping in at this juncture: Pepper, a first-person narrator, provides all the information the reader needs to know from previous novels without ever giving too much away.

If Pepper didn’t have trouble enough with trying to keep her group in order while still impressing Bianca with her fashion sense, she’s also the target of dead former prison warden Jefferson Lamar, a man who says he was falsely accused and convicted of the death of his secretary. He can’t rest until his widow knows that he wasn’t guilty, and Pepper hasto help him. So soon Pepper is stealing time from her work at the cemetery—and her appearances on the increasingly popular television show—to interview anyone who might know more about Lamar’s situation, including a number of perhaps not-so-former criminals.

Though I found a late present-day murder in Dead Man Talking a disappointing and unnecessary surprise, Pepper is a heroine notable for her refreshing lack of self-censorship: she doesn’t hesitate to hide her ambition or her own snobbery (a quality she doesn’t care for in the ladies of the opposing team). Her boyfriend, a cop, bears no resemblance to the almost saintly husbands featured on television series about women who see ghosts or dream about crimes. When Pepper finally bares her soul to him about what she does and why, he doesn’t believe her. Pepper deserves better.

Joanne Collings cozies up with a good book in Washington, D.C.

One of the biggest challenges faced by the author of cozy mystery series is finding original and convincing ways to involve his or her amateur detective protagonist in murder investigations book after book. After all, the best part-time sleuths have much in common with their readers and it is unlikely that most of them get involved in homicides on a regular basis. That the connection to the crime is in some way personal is a given for the first book; after that, more invention and imagination are required, or, perhaps, just honesty.

That’s where Clare O’Donohue is to be commended. The first death in A Drunkard’s Path (the second Someday Quilts Mystery after The Lover’s Knot) is connected to heroine Nell Fitzgerald only because the local police chief, stands her up on their first date without even calling to explain—a body has been discovered in their quiet Hudson River community. That’s enough to pique Nell’s active imagination, but her life is too full at the moment—she’s working at her grandmother’s quilt shop, starting art classes, meeting a talented but mysterious and apparently homeless fellow student—for her to get too involved in the investigation.

But the next death is someone she knows, and the young woman is killed in the backyard of Nell’s grandmother’s house. One of the suspects is Nell’s teacher, Oliver White, a famous artist who’s been showing a lot of interest in Nell’s grandmother, Eleanor. Though Nell now has all sorts of reasons to be curious, she’s also willing to admit that she’s also just plain nosy, a refreshing confession for an amateur detective.

Nell gets plenty of assistance from her fellow quilters of all ages, who are happy to unleash their own inner Nancy Drews in order to protect Eleanor. She gets less support from that police chief, Jesse Dewalt, and they once again take a detour on the road to romance.

O’Donohue finds a lot in quilting that applies to murder investigations: you’ve got to step back from what you’re working on once in a while in order to see it; the process is important; and “There’s no reason that solving a murder . . . should be any less organized than a quilt meeting.” These are lessons that Nell, a novice quilter, gradually takes in: “[A]nything, no matter how scary it seems at first, can be sorted out if you take it step by step. I just wasn’t sure if I was thinking about quilting, the murder investigation, or my relationship with Jesse.”

Joanne Collings cozies up with a good book in Washington, D.C.

Don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t learn anything from reading fiction. Here is an abbreviated list of things I learned from Jess Lourey’s September Fair: Neil Diamond went to NYU on a fencing scholarship, his fans are called Diamondheads (a fact that would have come in handy when I worked in an office of Neil Diamond fans), there is a competitive “sport” known as sheep riding or mutton busting, and Araucana chickens lay blue and green eggs. But September Fair is a lot more than a compendium of Neil Diamond and State Fair knowledge.

Mira James, a librarian/newspaper reporter from Battle Lake, Minnesota, is on a week-long assignment covering fair activities. She’s glad to be there, having discovered four murdered bodies in as many months after moving to Battle Lake for a quieter life. She’s considered giving up on Battle Lake but decides to stay. “It was a new idea, this sticking-it-out approach, and it looked good on paper.” Then she witnesses the death of the new Milkfed Mary, Queen of the Dairy, and reporting on the fair gets a lot more complicated.

Mira now has to look into the murder as well as the fair’s attractions. She’s assisted by her elderly friend, Mrs. Berns, major Diamondhead and winner of tickets to Diamond’s fair concert, which she shares with Mira; Berns also introduces Mira to sheep riding. Also in attendence is Battle Lake’s steamroller of a mayor, Kennie Rogers, who talks with a heavy Southern accent despite her Minnesota roots.

Lourey’s affection for the state fair is evident. She’s particularly good on the food, especially Mira’s weakness, the Deep-fried Nut Goody on a Stick. (Just about anything you can imagine—and some things you can’t—are sold deep-fried on a stick at fairs.) Mira may question how anyone ever thought of the idea of sculpting a head in butter, but she remains respectful of the talent and difficulty it takes to do this. And, since this is the fifth in the murder-by-month series, Lourey indicates awareness of the darker side of the fair: behind-the-scenes nastiness and more serious crimes and the unsavory influence of big business on the foods we consume, deep-fried or not, in this lively mystery.

Joanne Collings writes from Washington, D.C.

The older I get, the more aware I am that there are just too many books being published. There's no way to keep up and read everything, so I've made reading guidelines for myself. One I settled on a few years ago was simply not to read any featuring a non-professional as the protagonist-detective. Personally, I would rather not know if my dry cleaner is finding dead bodies on the premises regularly, and, if I had a literary agent, I would certainly prefer that he or she concentrate on selling my book rather than on solving crimes.

Now Rosemary Harris has punctured my neat, serviceable little rule with her new series, which begins with Pushing Up Daisies. Her heroine, Paula Holliday, who was downsized from her media job in New York City, has started a landscaping business in suburban Connecticut. What better profession to give an amateur sleuth—she has an excuse, after all, to be digging around in the dirt, which is a natural place to find a body. There are archeologists, true, but landscaping is a less exotic, more believable job. Paula becomes involved in a mystery when she uncovers the remains of a long-dead baby on the estate of a pair of deceased sisters. Eventually there is a contemporary crime that also catches Paula's growing interest in detective work; the solutions to the mysteries central to the plot are surprisingly complex. Paula does have professional and personal reasons to become involved, so the reader doesn't have to be distracted by wondering why she doesn't leave the police work to the police. (And the policeman here, in the person of the overweight Mike O'Malley, is a person of interest, both to the reader and certainly to Paula.)

Harris, who is a master gardener herself, takes care not to pile on too much horticulture; actually, I would have preferred more. But the strengths of Pushing Up Daisies involve place, character and often sprightly dialogue. And note the scene in which the villain is unmasked: It's highly original and involves a maze, crushed oyster shells and buttercream icing.

Joanne Collings writes from Washington, D.C.