Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice

The continuation of a fun, comic mystery series where a dysfunctional family travels to Atlantic City and faces mayhem, mischief, and murder.

Fast action and clever wit course through Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice, the fourth installment in a wildly fun, comic mystery series by Elle Cosimano.

 

Finlay “Finn” Donovan is a divorced, mother of two; a chronically blocked romantic suspense novelist who, over three books, has been up to her eyeballs in mayhem, mischief, and murder. She’s been mistaken for a contract killer. She’s kept her ex-husband safe, away from someone (other than her) wanting to kill him. And she’s gone up against the Russian mob. Along the way, Finn’s been wooed by a ‘hot’ police officer.

 

The antics continue when Finn and her tribe travel from Virginia to Atlantic City, NJ, on the pretext of a much-needed, get-away weekend. The trip covertly involves Finn tracking down a stolen car, negotiating with a devious loan shark, and rescuing the long-lost beau of Vero—her bilingual, live-in nanny, confidante, and crime-solving cohort. A posse piles into an old Buick and sets off on a zany adventure. The passengers include Finn and her two young children; their father, Finn’s jealous ex, Steven; Finn’s overbearing mother; and Vero. Once in Atlantic City, a murder suddenly upends the secret agenda. Will the clever ingenuity of Finn and Vero bring luck enough for them to hit a jackpot for justice?

 

Cosimano (Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun, Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead) ups the stakes, once again keeping readers laughing all the way through a maze of well-plotted danger. 

Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice (The Finlay Donovan Series, Book 4) by Elle Cosimano

Minotaur Books/MacMillan, $28.00 hardcover, 9781250846006, 320 pages

Publishing Date: March 5, 2024

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review as originally published on Shelf Awareness (March 22, 2024), link HERE 

Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead

The second entry in Elle Cosimano's Finlay Donovan series—another bumbling comedy of errors and a hilarious, fast-paced mystery upends the life of a struggling writer and single mother.

Elle Cosimano has crafted in heroine Finlay Donovan a flawed yet enormously lovable and sympathetic character. In the first book in the series, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It, the exhausted single mother of two and struggling suspense novelist was mistaken for a contract killer when she publicly discussed the plot of her work-in-progress novel over lunch at a Panera Bread café. This launched Finlay into madcap mayhem that involved the Russian mafia.

In her second misadventure, Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead, Finlay is still struggling to raise her two young children, meet writing deadlines and juggle the romantic attentions of a handsome law student and a detective in Fairfax County, Va. Her life takes another unexpected detour when, by way of an online mothers' support group, Finlay accidentally learns that someone wants her cheating ex-husband--Steven Donovan, the father of her children--dead. With the help of her reliable nanny sidekick--accounting student Veronica Ruiz, aka Vero--Finlay devises a plan to save Steven's life and flush out who has it in for him. However, Finlay's blundering scheme backfires when she uses public Wi-Fi. She and her plan are outed, embroiling her, yet again, in escalating danger.

 

Cosimano's plucky heroine continues to shine in a fast-paced, suspenseful mystery with stellar comic timing and wit. Playful snark and revealing secrets make for a roller-coaster plot with so many absurdist twists and turns that readers will be left winded from the excitement--and much laughter.

 

Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead: The Finlay Donovan Series – Book Two by Elle Cosimano

Minotaur (MacMillan Publishers), $26.99 hardcover, 9781250242181, 368 pages

Publication Date: February 2, 2022

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

Murder at the Mill

A portrait painter turns amateur sleuth when a corpse is discovered on Christmas Day in an idyllic English town.

M.B. Shaw is the pen name of British writer Tilly Bagshawe, who has written several contemporary romance novels (Scandalous), as well as thrillers for the literary estate of Sidney Sheldon (Sidney Sheldon's The Tides of Memory). Murder at theMill is the first installment of her smart, lively mystery series; in it Shaw probes the secrets of an idyllic Hampshire village.

The book opens in December. Iris Grey--a 41-year-old portrait painter--has fled her home in Clapham and her estranged husband, Ian McBride, a once successful playwright. After several years of failing to conceive a child via in vitro fertilization, the couple--heartsick and broke--has split up. Iris had hoped that by settling in to Mill Cottage in Hazelford ("Alone. Like a mad cat lady, only without the cats") she would "paint and hide and lick her wounds." Shortly after her arrival, however, she's commissioned to paint a portrait of resident Dominic Wetherby, a charismatic and famous crime writer. During the Wetherbys' posh Christmas party, a corpse is discovered in the river. The shock leaves the family, townsfolk, gossipmongers and the paparazzi reeling. Speculations abound. Was the death an accident--or murder?

Shaw has created a wise and winning sleuth in Iris. Her keen, observational skills honed from her artistic sensibility allow her to detect subtle nuances of human emotion and motivation. This, along with an intricate, cozy plot--and fully realized characters embroiled in a dynamic whodunit and why--will keep readers guessing, and eager for future installments. 

Murder at the Mill: The Iris Grey Mysteries (Book One) by M.B. Shaw

Minotaur Books, $27.99, Hardcover, 9781250189295, 400 pages

Publication Date: December 4, 2018

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (January 15, 2019), link HERE

Collared: An Andy Carpenter Novel

An abandoned border collie revives a child abduction case and the career of a devoted defense attorney.

Andy Carpenter is an independently wealthy defense attorney in Paterson, N.J. He's also an exasperating husband, a newly adoptive father and a devoted animal lover. In Collared, the 14th installment in David Rosenfelt's dog-centric mystery series, Andy and his crackerjack investigative team go back to work. This time, a border collie with a limp is abandoned at the rescue shelter owned by Andy. When the stray is scanned, the embedded identity chip reveals he is actually Cody, a dog whose hair sample DNA proved the lynchpin in a prior kidnapping case.

Who left the dog at the shelter and why? Andy and his cohorts--including his long-suffering wife, an ex-police officer--resurrect a three-year-old case involving Cody, whose owner was Jill Hickman. At the age of 35, Jill--a successful, single businesswoman--adopted a one-month-old child she named Dylan. When Hickman's nanny took Dylan and Cody for a walk, the nanny was brutally assaulted, and the child and the dog both disappeared. The "DNA dog," as Cody was nicknamed, ultimately led police to the suspected kidnapper--a once top employee from Hickman's company and also her former fiancé--who was found guilty of the crime, though Cody and Dylan remained missing. With Cody's re-emergence, hopes rise for all involved. Might Dylan, too, still be alive?

Short chapters and dialogue-driven prose are hallmarks of Rosenfelt's (Hounded) suspenseful, long-running series. This installment is crafted with an intriguing premise, witty recurrent characters and a well-conceived mystery that unravels with surprising twists.

Collared: An Andy Carpenter Novel by David Rosenfelt

Minotaur Books (Macmillan), $26.99 Hardcover,  9781250055354, 336  pages

Publication Date: July 18, 2017

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (August 18, 2017), link HERE

SCARECROW

"It was one of those freakish October days, when the mercury shoots up to the nineties, catching everyone off guard..."  (Prologue)

When a young girl under her care dies, Dr. Jo Banks (20-something) is racked with guilt. In an effort to escape the pain and heartbreak of her misdiagnosis, Jo gets in her car and starts to drive. Lost in thought and with no destination in mind, she sets off from her home in Manhattan and hightails it onto the New Jersey Turnpike. Jo winds up hours - and what seems like a world - away from the big city, in Bayfield, a small, rural enclave in Southwest New Jersey, where "the serene line of the horizon (was) broken only by an occasional lone tree or scarecrow." Shortly after she checks in to the Oakview Motor Lodge, she is called upon to treat a woman staying at the motel who has suddenly taken ill. Jo's actions that night ultimately prompt her to uproot her life and take a job serving as a "cooperative house doctor" at several motels in the region. The nearest hospital is over an hour away.

Thus, Dr. Jo Banks' journey enters a new chapter. She is given her own cabin at Oakview in which to live and work. Slowly building her practice, Jo begins to fall in love with the small town and the people who live there. Feeling freer and more liberated than ever, she buys a motorcycle to make "house" calls. But when a dead man, disguised as a scarecrow, is found perched in a local farm field, Jo suddenly becomes swept up in a series of murders involving itinerant farm workers and morphs from town doctor to amateur sleuth.

SCARECROW is a brisk, fast-paced read - perfect to curl up with during this autumn time of year. SCARECROW is also the first in a series of three books (the next two are SATAN'S PONY and SLEIGHT OF HAND; a fourth is currently in the works) that features strong, independent Dr. Jo and a cast of intriguing, well-defined characters.

 Robin Hathaway is masterful at writing short, tightly compressed chapters (with astutely rendered descriptions) that balance rich characterizations with an engaging plot. I marvel at how she gives so much information and backstory with a single line of description and/or dialogue. Read Chapter One and you'll see what I mean...In four, crisp pages, Hathaway presents everything you need to know about Dr. Jo Banks by showing you, rather than telling you. Impeccable!

If you like Jo Banks as much as I do, don't miss Hathaway's other award-winning mysteries, the Dr. Fenimore series of books. 

To watch an interview with Robin Hathaway link HERE.

Scarecrow by Robin Hathaway
(Minotaur Books, Hardcover, 9780312308513, 224pp.)
Publication Date: April 2003
To purchase this book via INDIEBOUND click HERE

Dead Head

When you want to escape from life for a while, what do you read for fun? If you're like me, a good cozy mystery is the answer and the Dirty Business Series, created by Rosemary Harris, never disappoints. If you enjoy gardening (as I do), quirky characters, and a small town setting, then you're in for another real treat with Harris's latest, Dead Head.  

In the trilogy of mysteries, beginning with Pushing Up Daisies and followed by The Big Dirt Nap, Harris has created Paula H0lliday, a smart, gutsy amateur sleuth with whom you'll want to spend time.  Paula is a transplanted media executive who moved from New York City to the Connecticut suburbs to start a gardening business. However, in pursuing her bliss, she chronically find herself unearthing mysteries, and her inquisitive nature forces her to dig for the truth.  Harris has a real flare for intertwining her passion for gardening into comic, off-beat, and brisk-paced suspense plots. 

In Dead Head, Paula's business is suffering amid the current economic climate. She discovers that one of her best clients and a potential partner for her floundering business is living a lie. The woman, a pillar within the community, is actually a fugitive (a convicted drug dealer) who escaped from prison 25 years before. Gee, one never knows just who might be living next door!

Harris successfully fleshes out the story of Dead Head through shifting first-person points-of-view and flashbacks that are bound to keep you riveted to the page . . . distracting you from tilling the soil in your own garden.

For this 'Book of the Week,' I'm offering a special give-away.  Drop me an e-mail at katgerard@aol.com and be entered to win a signed, paperback copy of Rosemary Harris's first in the Dirty Business Mystery Series, Pushing Up Daisies.