Laughing Can Kill You

Maggie King’s astute cozy-mystery protagonist Hazel Rose of Richmond, Virginia, is thrust front and center in a murder investigation that puts her own life in jeopardy. 

Hazel Rose is a computer-programmer-turned-romance writer who burst onto the cozy literary murder-mystery scene in Murder at the Book Group. In that novel, Book One, she was swept up in solving the murder of a book club member who died after ingesting a cup of tea laced with cyanide. In Book Two, Murder at the Moonshine Inn, Hazel and her book club cronies became embroiled in solving the suspicious death of a high-powered executive found dead in the parking lot of a local watering hole. In Laughing Can Kill You, Book Three in this engaging series, poor Hazel learns that she’s been dumped by her publisher—her romance books have faced lagging sales. Ever resilient and undaunted Hazel decides to sign up for a local course in mystery writing in the hope that by switching gears, she’ll re-energize her career. The problem is, however, there is always one spoiler in every group—and writing groups are no exception.

Self-aggrandizing Randall “Randy” Zimmerman, Esquire—a lawyer-turned-thriller-writer who believes he can give “John Grisham a run for his money”--is that one annoying person in Hazel’s group. Randy is the ex-husband of a book club member. He takes confrontational pleasure in demeaning, belittling and even laughing at the work of his fellow classmates. When Hazel and her true-crime writing husband, Vince, find Randy dead, foul-play looms. Hazel--with the help of her cohorts--once again goes on a dangerous pursuit to root out the killer.  

Readers don’t need to be familiar with King’s prior books to enjoy this one, but they’ll no doubt want to after reading this well-crafted, suspenseful whodunnit augmented with a strong supporting, small-town ensemble cast and a ratcheting plot rife with shifty motives and red herrings.

Laughing Can Kill You: A Hazel Rose Book Group Mystery (Book Three) by Maggie King

Olive Lane Press, $12.99 paperback, 9798985231816, 320 pages

Publication Date: December 6, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

Read my reviews of other Hazel Rose Book Group Mysteries:

MURDER AT THE BOOK GROUP

MURDER AT THE MOONSHINE INN

Murder at the Moonshine Inn

When Murder at the Moonshine Inn opens, readers learn that it's been eight years since Hazel Rose--a computer programmer turned romance novelist and super-sleuth--solved the murder of a disgruntled Richmond, Va. book club member who died after sipping cyanide-laced tea at a book club discussion.

In this second installment, Hazel goes undercover to find out who killed Roxanne Howard, a willful and high-powered executive, in the parking lot of a local redneck watering hole. Roxanne's grief-stricken sister enlists Hazel's help to find the killer as Roxanne's husband, Brad, is actually Hazel's distant cousin—and he also becomes the prime suspect in his wife's murder.

As Hazel gets drawn deeper into the mystery--and enlists the help of her shrewd, clever, mystery-loving book club cohorts--more complications ensue that involve Hazel's distant relatives and a long list of possible suspects ranging from Roxanne's rivals to former employees.

Hazel's fifth husband, a retired Richmond homicide detective who is a writer of true crime books, offers Hazel pertinent information into the investigation that aids her quest to flush out the murderer. What was the motive—love or money...or maybe revenge? When a second murder occurs, red herrings thwart Hazel's investigation until her own safety comes at risk. 

King (Murder at the Book Group) delivers another well-written, suspenseful cozy filled with a charming, quirky cast of book-loving characters and a plot that tightens before it ultimately unspools into a surprising conclusion.

Murder at the Moonshine Inn: A Hazel Rose Book Club Mystery by Maggie King

KoehlerBooks, $16.95 Paperback, 9781633932814, 260 pages

Publication Date: November 15, 2016

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, click HERE

Book Club Ideas: Historical Fiction

From My Shelf

Orphan Train (paperback, $14.99, Morrow) by Christina Baker Kline remains a book club favorite. This story about the fictional friendship between a young Irish immigrant and a 91-year-old woman ties in with the history of the trains that transported 200,000 abandoned children put up for adoption in the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century.

The aim of historical fiction is to situate characters--sometimes real, sometimes imagined--amid actual events and backdrops that are accurately rich in detail and/or epic in scope. The genre continues to flourish. Here are some other titles worth a closer look:

Isabelle Allende examines the past and present, youth and old age, in The Japanese Lover (paperback $16, Atria, July), a novel about destiny, sacrifice and redemption. The story is set in a senior home, but the details are anchored in 1939, when an eight-year-old Polish girl flees the Nazis and goes to live with her aunt and uncle in San Francisco. There, the girl makes friends--and eventually falls in love--with a Japanese boy interned in the United States following Pearl Harbor.

Lee Smith sets Guests on Earth (paperback, $14.95, Algonquin) in 1936 in Highland Hospital, a noted psychiatric facility in Asheville, N.C. Smith examines ideas of sanity versus insanity, art and madness via her orphaned, 13-year-old protagonist, Evalina Toussaint. Evalina is institutionalized and falls under the spell of flamboyant Zelda Fitzgerald (wife of author F. Scott Fitzgerald) who was an actual patient in the hospital before a tragic, suspicious fire killed her and several other women.

The Civil War and the horrors of slavery infuse The Invention of Wings (paperback, $17, Penguin) by Sue Monk Kidd, a tale inspired by the life of 19th-century abolitionist and suffragist Sarah Grimké. Kidd tackles issues of race, gender, activism, religion and feminism via the creation of two richly drawn characters: the strong-willed daughter of a wealthy South Carolina plantation owner and her personal slave whom she seeks to liberate.

Note: This column (published 6/10/16) has been reprinted with the permission of Shelf Awareness: Shelf Awareness for Readers. Link HERE to read the article as it originally appeared.

Murder at the Book Group

Maggie King entertainingly darkens the common perception of book clubs (a benign assembly of readers who've come together to discuss books) in her quirky debut, Murder at the Book Group. The story begins when normally even-keeled, vain Carlene Arness hurls the cozy mystery under discussion into a fireplace. "This book sucks," she exclaims. "There should be a law protecting the reading public from such trash!" The shocked members try to placate irate Carlene, who is also a mystery novelist, then rationally discuss and analyze the plot, which has to do with cyanide slipped into the teacup of an unsuspecting victim.

When the group breaks for refreshments, Carlene suddenly drops dead. Remarkably, her death is deemed the result of cyanide poisoning. When a note is discovered, Carlene's death appears to be a suicide. Many in the group, however, suspect someone killed her and forged the note--or is this kind of thinking the result of having read too many mystery novels? The quest for both who done it and why unearths a host of insidious rivalries and romantic entanglements.

The narrator, Hazel Rose, is a computer programmer turned aspiring romance novelist who cofounded the book club with Carlene. Carlene's death gives Hazel's banal existence a much-needed jolt, but her search for a would-be killer is riddled with snags when Carlene's friends, family and acquaintances offer compelling details of Carlene's multiple identities, surprising secrets and sordid love affairs. The amateur sleuth's pseudo-investigative skills and her interactions with a cast of well-drawn, small-town characters reveal a deception that ultimately coalesces into a study of human nature and the limits of perception.

Murder at the Book Group by Maggie King

Pocket, $7.99 Mass Market Paperback, 9781476762463, 400 pp

Publication Date: December 30, 2014

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (1/6/15), click HERE

This review was also featured (in a longer form) on Shelf Awareness: Book Trade (12/18/14). To read the longer review click HERE

The First Phone Call From Heaven

Mitch Albom, the author of The Five People You Meet in Heaven, delivers a novel which questions the idea of life after life. 

In The First Phone Call from Heaven, select inhabitants of Coldwater, Michigan start receiving brief, often cryptic, calls from loved ones who have died. Some in the sleepy little town look forward to the calls, taking solace; others find them much too emotional and avoid them. Some choose to keep their conversations secret, but folks like Katherine Yellin—a 46 year-old divorced mother—believe the calls received from her beloved, deceased sister must be shared. When Yellin goes public, others, too, come forward until the mysterious communications from the afterlife grab worldwide media attention, turning Coldwater into a circus-like, pilgrimage destination.

Religious and anti-religious wrestle with the implications, along with skeptics like local resident Sully Harding, a former pilot whose wife died while he was serving prison time. The single father's heartbreaking back-story figures prominently into the suspense of the plot. When Sully's seven-year-old son expresses a longing to receive a call from his own deceased mother, Sully sets out on a quest to prove the phone calls asserting that heaven exists are all a hoax.

Albom's ensemble cast of characters reflects varying attitudes, fears and hopes of people coping with guilt, grief and loss. Interjected throughout the briskly paced narrative are details of Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone, what it meant for his own life and its context in the modern world. Albom's dialogue-driven story culminates near Christmas. The story ultimately becomes a social commentary about human connection, encouraging readers to question the meaning of their own lives, faith and beliefs.

The First Phone Call from Heaven by Mitch Albom

Harper, $24.99, Hardcover, 9780062294371 , 326 pp

Publication Date: November 12, 2013

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women's Literary Society

Amy Hill Hearth (Having our Say: The Delaney Sisters' First 100 Years) takes the reader back to 1962, when Naples, Florida was a "sunbaked southern backwater town" and not what it is today, one of "the richest, swankiest places on earth." The book is told from the perspective of 80 year-old, divorced Dora Witherspoon, who recollects a time when she was a postal worker and was caught, on the job, violating postal regulations by perusing the latest issue of Vogue addressed to a glamorous newcomer in town, a transplant from Boston, Massachusetts , Jackie Hart. When Jackie catches Dora in the act and asks, "What else do you like to read?" the encounter sparks the formation of the Collier County Women's Literary Society, a group that draws an array of local misfits who gather to read and discuss great books - and inadvertently reveal mysteries and secrets about their own lives.

The society grows to include the local librarian; the town's one and only Sears employee; a woman who once did prison time for allegedly killing her husband; a middle-aged poet; a token male member; and a young "colored" girl, a maid, who is secretly whisked to the meetings in the racially segregated town.

In the midst of it all, the KKK is hard at work and Collier County becomes rapt by an anonymous radio show anchored by Miss Dreamsville, whose mysterious identity spices up life in the small town. Inspired by true events, Amy Hill Hearth has written a heart-tugging story about how this band of colorful characters finds liberation--and friendship--amid a time and place where "sameness" was once revered.   

Miss Dreamsville and The Collier County Women's Literary Society by Amy Hill Hearth

Atria Books, $15, Trade paper, 9781451675238, 272 pp

Publication Date: October 2, 2012

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Please note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (10/12/12), click HERE.