How To Book A Murder by Cynthia Kuhn
The pandemic may have stopped or delayed a lot of things in our daily lives – but it sure didn’t stop a lot of great authors and publishers from giving us some really sensational cozy mysteries!
Crooked Lane Books brings us How to Book a Murder, A Starlit Bookshop Mystery and brand new series from top-notch author, Cynthia Kuhn.
The story opens with Lucy Starrs struggling to hang on to the family owned bookstore. Her parents started the store when they were young. They retired and then passed away. Now Lucy is living in her parents’ home with her Aunt Nora (a famous mystery writer) and running the bookshop as best she can.
Lucy has made a steadfast promise to keep the bookshop going. But the cash flow hasn’t been flowing for a while – and the beautiful, old bookstore is hanging by a thread.
Enter sister Emma, who’s heard about the failing bookshop and has blown back into town to help save it. Emma has had some lightweight experience as an event planner and she and Lucy decide to start promoting the bookshop as a venue to hold some of the town’s special events. It’s sure to bring in extra sales, new customers and desperately needed $$$$.
Tabitha Baxter needs some help with her mystery themed dinner party at her home – seems her upscale event planner bailed at the last minute. Emma steps in to take on the event which can land the bookstore a nice chunk of change. Unfortunately, when Emma was growing up, she went to school with Tabitha Baxter. Back then, Tabitha was one of those “mean girls”. But now – Tabitha is all grown up (and filthy rich). She’s not a “mean girl” anymore – nope, she’s a “mean woman!”
But in spite of it all, the dinner party goes on without a hitch until the cool fall night gets downright cold – but not as cold as the dead body Emma finds on the patio. A murder on her first day as the town’s event planner is not exactly good for business!
Emma’s sure her new idea and career to help out the bookstore has gone down the drain when local self-proclaimed earth goddess and author, Calliope Nightfall approaches Emma. She wants Emma to plan and launch her newest book inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee.
It’s going to also be a Halloween event. Calliope’s dramatic and somewhat goth persona has her requesting so many outrageous and over-the-top trimmings, it will have reader’s grinning from ear-to- ear (live ravens? bats? coffins? Huh?).
While Emma has her hands full coordinating Calliope’s book launch, “mean woman” Tabitha is still set in her ways — i.e., causing trouble and chaos. She’s pointing her diamond infested fingers at Emma and her Aunt Nora, and accusing them of being cold-blooded killers!
It’s up to Emma to clear their names and help weed out a killer in a plot thicker than the thickest pea soup! Looks like the murder might somehow be tied into the local college. There’s a big uproar about a vacant top floor at the college and what to do with it. Doesn’t seem like there could possibly be any kind of murderous motive tied to it, until these prim and proper professors and even their spouses, show their not so complacent sides – in fact, anger management courses may be in order!
Or maybe the murder has something to do with Tabitha’s closest friends. Could her friends actually be “frenemies” hiding their own personal agendas? And why were Tabitha’s hubby and EX-hubby so darn buddy buddy?
This flawless mystery will have reader’s perplexed at the number of swimmers in the suspect pool and a hidden motive that’s sure to both please and tease. Cynthia Kuhn’s writing and storytelling is smooth as silk, blending her characters into a mystery that’s first-class all the way.
How to Book a Murder, A Starlit Bookshop Mystery is the first in this series – and pssst, I hear there’s another one, In the Event of Murder, due out in August (I can hardly wait)!
A copy of this book/photo was provided by the publisher, Crooked Lane Books.