Staff Reviews

In this adventure cozy, Morgan Carter owns Odds and Ends Bookstore in Sister Bay, where the mystery section is next to a Ouija Board and a fine collection of skulls. Having taken the mantle of bookseller from her deceased parents, she’s also inherited their love of cryptozoology. When two seemingly unrelated bodies are discovered with unexplained bite marks, the talk turns to a possible Nessie-esque monster in Lake Michigan, and Carter’s hired to investigate. And what is an adventure cozy, you ask? Imagine Indiana Jones crossed with Miss Marple - a mystery at the center, perhaps a little more gore than in a standard cozy, the requisite humor, and a touch of romance in the background. Lots of Door County details too! 

There’s nothing quite like an adventurous, cozy murder mystery set in a place where I’ve personally loved doing summer vacations. Of course, it helps that I didn’t die there, or I wouldn’t feel quite so much love for the place, right? But I didn’t, and this mystery involves a very quirky bookstore, a lovable dog… and a monster search. Morgan Carter, owner of a mystery bookstore that sells mysterious objects far beyond books, is a cryptozoologist whose cryptid fascination essentially began at birth. She was born on a boat in the middle of Loch Ness during her parents’ search for Nessie. She also has multiple college degrees and considers herself a professional skeptic who requires actual proof of monsters. The combination makes her perfect for helping Washington Island’s police chief, as he investigates the drowning of two men with large and unusual bite marks on their bodies. I’m not sure how “cozy” and “murder” ended up in the same universe, but they often seem to get along nicely, and I enjoyed their partnership here. The characters are endearing, and the boating to remote places that I’ve never seen had me using Google Earth to check out the landscapes. This was a nice literary summer vacation.