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Cloche and Dagger: 07/02/24
Cloche and Dagger by Jenn McKinlay and Karyn O'Bryant (Narrator) (2013) is the start of the Hat Shop mystery series. I began reading it because of the crossover in Death in the Stacks (2017). Scarlett Parker is now infamous on social media as the party crasher for tossing cake at her boyfriend when she realized he was still married. To escape notoriety she has left her life in Florida to take up a long offered role as co-owner of Mim's Whims, a haberdashers in London. When she arrives, her cousin is missing and she essentially has to wing it. For a sizable chunk of this book it seems that the cousin's disappearance will be the mystery that needs solving. Her vanishing is so perfectly timed with Scarlett's arrival to either be a kidnapping or worse, a murder. Don't forget that many proto-cozy series begin with the murder of a shop owning relative! At about the two third's mark there is in fact a murder. The murder is rather petty and not in keeping with all the other murders I've read by this author. It also has a couple boners of lazy descriptions. The first is the murderer's access to the victim in a house with a full staff. There's no way they'd get in without the housekeeper or butler knowing about it. Second, is the cousin's explanation when she finally returns: namely that she had gone to Africa. Can you be more specific? The second book is Death of a Mad Hatter (2014). Four stars Comments (0) |