Short Cozy Mysteries

Successful attorney Larry Scott checks his watch and realizes that he is still working in his law office at four minutes past midnight which means that Larry has just turned sixty years of age while chained to his desk. He is disgusted with his workaholic ways and decides right then and there to retire from the Indianapolis law firm where he has toiled for his entire thirty-five year legal career. Larry has no idea that a bizarre set of circumstances will soon have him sorting through cryptic clues to solve three very old murders back in his home town of Vevay, Indiana. Can Larry make the ...

She bought the cabin on a whim. But will it transform into her perfect getaway? Burnt out from her high-flying author career and dreaming of escaping her busy Manhattan life, when Laura discovers her husband cheating on her with another writer, she knows it’s time for a change. After her brother calls her about a country Bed and Breakfast for sale, Laura ditches New York and buys it on the spot… only to realize that the run-down cabin will need more than a little elbow grease to restore it to working condition. As she’s swept up in the quiet joys of small-town life, an ad in the local...

If you like your cozy mysteries with a bit of humour, small town Canadian life, a hint of romance, a close circle of quirky, lovable characters that you wish you knew in real life, dogs and cats, and free knitting patterns, there's something in this series for you.

Peace on Earth isn’t everyone’s cup of tea in Charlotte MacLeod’s “A Cozy for Christmas”. Peter Lovesey’s “The Haunted Crescent” delivers a holiday ghost story with a twist. A training session for department-store Santas turns up Saint Nicks who are anything but angels in Isaac Asimov’s “Ho, Ho, Ho”. Marcia Muller’s “Silent Night” finds a tough private investigator searching San Francisco’s Tenderloin district - and discovering something unexpected.

Gus is having one of the best things a man that works in law enforcement can have, a very slow day. His slow day only gets better when he discovers that an ice cream shop is opening near the law enforcement complex. Even though the ice cream shop only serves gelato, that’s not enough to spoil his good mood on this slow day. The only real way his slow day could get ruined was if someone mysteriously dropped dead in the yoga studio across the street from the ice cream shop while at nearly the same time Father Xavier volunteered him to speak at the weekly Tuesday prayer breakfast at town ...

Last Meal includes a half dozen flash fiction stories in which things sometimes go horribly wrong and at other times go wonderfully right, or at least they seem to. These six quick reads appeared originally in Gilbert Magazine, the journal of the American Chesterton Society.

An annual Christmas parade... A missing trophy... A high school nemesis returns... Do bad things always come in threes? When an old high school nemesis of her mother is murdered, Alivia Sue Harper (Ash) and her best friend Kaley Ann Tipton (Kat) rush to prove her innocence. A short read cozy mystery.

In the charming town of Pinewood Hollow, the stakes are high as two rival bakers, Francine Hayes and Olivia Barlow, face off in a dessert duel. But when Olivia collapses in the middle of the competition and dies under suspicious circumstances, all eyes turn to Francine. Did bitter rivalry push Francine to murder? Or is there something even more sinister at play? Violet “Vi” Dumont, bakery and craft shop owner, and her clever cat Muffin are on the case. As Vi and Detective Marcus Reed dig into the history of the bakers’ feud, they uncover a tangled web of secrets, betrayals, and old ...

Leila is on her way home for the holidays. She has a big surprise for her family and friends…only to find out there is a surprise of a different kind waiting for her. Lizzie is so ready for Christmas…she’s also ready to solve the mysterious puzzle Harry found carved into the front of the saloon’s very antique bar. A suggestion from Leila has them searching the saloon yet once again for something else they might be missing. If it exists, it could help solve the old puzzle they were beginning to believe was an impossible feat. Kevin is ready for the holidays too. His and Lizzie’s ...

Innkeeper Max Moran is again involved in solving a murder when the actor playing the victim at a murder mystery dinner held at the Fireside Inn gives the best performance of his life and actually dies. Chief of police Philpot, who hates Max with a passion, dearly wishes to prove that Max is the killer, thus forcing Max to discover the killer's true identity. As usual, Max travels unsteadily along a twisty road that eventually leads him to the culprit. At the same time, Max has a starring role in the local Christmas play, Curzin' Toward Bethlehem, which reinterprets the story of the three ...

"Eggnog Murder": When a gift-wrapped bottle of eggnog proves to be a killer concoction for a Tinker's Cove local, all Lucy Stone wants for Christmas is to find the murdering mixologist who's stirring up trouble. "Death By Eggnog": Food and cocktails columnist Hayley Powell has never cared much for Bar Harbor's grouchy town librarian, Agatha Farnsworth. But after the Scroogy senior has a fatal - and suspicious - allergic reaction to supposedly non-dairy eggnog, it's up to Hayley to ladle out some justice.

A missing pet. A gang of criminal pit bulls. Two cat detectives are ready to solve a mystery… Yoshi and Gatsby are two felines known as the Petectives. When they agree to help a pretty young cat find her missing brother, a routine pet investigation goes sour faster than a bowl of milk. To solve the mystery, the cat detectives must face down a gang of vicious criminal pit bulls and the neighborhood dog police. While Gatsby's up to his whiskers in danger and romance, Yoshi puts together the pieces of a puzzle that could rock their community. With enemies at every turn, can Yoshi and Gatsby ...

What is a girl who hates Christmas doing driving to the most holiday-themed town in the state? Snowflake Falls was located in the coldest, most northern part of the state. Even in the middle of summer, it was rarely warmer than 70 degrees. But when her elderly aunt calls asking for help to run her shop Jolly Goods, Autumn Winter knew she needed to go.

Family meant everything to Ayden Stratton. It always had even when he didn’t always allow it to show. Because of that, he understood the fury in Tobias Blaise’s eyes when they learned that his sister had been dragged out the backdoor of her restaurant despite every effort to stop her from being kidnapped. Fury didn’t begin to describe what he saw in his brother’s face. Cassidy Blaise might be Tobias’s sister, but she was Benjamin’s entire world. Tobias Blaise never expected to find any woman he wanted to spend his life with, let alone one who looked at him the way Ellis did, ...

A rare orchid is flowering on the magical Garden Isles but when Fran arrives to see it on her latest travel writing adventure she’s horrified to find the plant has been attacked and the exotic bloom is lying chopped on the floor of the glasshouse. Soon Fran is teaming up with tour guide Harry again for a spot of sleuthing and they’re hot on the trail. Who destroyed the special bloom and why? One thing is for sure, there’s a long list of suspects and they need to work fast to catch the vandal before they catch the next ferry off the island and escape to freedom…

"There are more things..." Life in Citrus County Florida, on the Nature Coast has Bernie scratching his head. There's no shortage of mysteries and an occasional murder. Bernie is Irish, and the mythology seems to have followed him. With the help of his brother and friends, he encounters Big Foot. Or does he? This is a man's Cozy mystery - A Brozie - and will have you chuckling all afternoon.

Leader of the Underworld Halloween LaVeau is attending an award ceremony. Brothers Liam and Nicolas have been nominated for Coven Leader of the Year. Things take a strange turn when ghosts and magic collide during the ceremony. There will be no awards given out if Halloween doesn’t gain control of the event.Previously published in the Spell of the Ball anthology.

In her Food Lovers' Village Mysteries, Agatha Award-winning author Leslie Budewitz introduces us to Jewel Bay, a tight-knit Montana community that thrives on tourism and farm-to-table fare. Featuring Erin Murphy, beloved proprietor of the Merc—a century-old general store converted into a local foods market-each book brings us closer to the folks who call Jewel Bay home, and the cunning culprits in their midst.

Since moving to Aspen Falls, Pennsylvania, to be closer to her college-age daughter, Linda Habernackle has had little time to focus on her love life. Both Detective Mark Whitman and Sorcerer Merrick Stone have expressed their desire to woo her, but she’s had to put them both on the back burner while she and her son, Reign, have gotten their new B&B up and running. But things have settled down at Habernackle’s, and now it’s time for Linda to make a decision! Which man has her heart?

After a near-fatal adventure in another world—a world of dragons, no less—Samantha Moon is ready for her first real vacation in nearly a decade. With a little money in her pocket from the sale of a mansion left to her by her vampire sire, Sam sets her sights on a whirlwind European tour. First stop: Ireland. When a dark shadow races across her hotel suite, followed by something evil watching her son from a suit of armor, Samantha Moon is about to discover that her trip to the Emerald Isle is going to be anything but relaxing... it's going to get deadly. After all, something wicked has ...