BOOKED FOR MURDER, debut bookseller/sleuth cozy mystery set in Georgia

BOOKED FOR MURDER
P.J. NELSON
Minotaur Books
$14.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In this atmospheric southern cozy debut, Madeline Brimley returns to the bookstore she inherited, discovering that small towns hold deadly secrets.

Madeline Brimley left small town Georgia many years ago to go to college and pursue her dreams on the stage. Her dramatic escapades are many but success has eluded her, leaving her at loose ends. But then she gets word that not only has her beloved, eccentric Aunt Rose passed, but she's left Madeline her equally eccentric bookstore housed in an old Victorian mansion in the small college town of Enigma. But when she arrives in her beat-up Fiat to claim The Old Juniper Bookstore, and restart her life, Madeline is faced with unexpected challenges. The gazebo in the back yard is set ablaze and a late night caller threatens to burn the whole store down if she doesn't leave immediately.

But Madeline Brimley, not one to be intimidated, ignores the threats and soldiers on. Until there's another fire and a murder in the store itself. Now with a cloud of suspicion falling over her, it's up to Madeline to untangle the skein of secrets and find the killer before she herself is the next victim.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Very cozy indeed. Slow of pace, low on suspense, modest stakes as a result...I never got the sense Madeline believed she was in real danger, always a risk in a mystery...but what I got was the balm of feeling at home.

A bookstore, a small town where you're a known quantity, a problem to solve that demands attention you'd otherwise devote to unhealthy rumination on unfixable crap from the past, all marry the needs of the moment and the desire to see ma'at served. It happens so seldom in the real world. I read on, certain I knew who was behind the deeds most dastardly (I was right, if it matters), coddiwompling along in no particular hurry to get to the end. This, by itself, this ability to go somehere I *knew* Rightness and Justice would prevail, was so soothing to my outraged sensibilities that I was happy to ignore my crotchets. A too-convenient aversion to cell phones was my biggest gripe about Madeline.

The pace is likely to put many off, though as a class cozy-mystery readers do not seem to me all that interested in how fast we're traveling. Unless the trip is, for some personal reason, unpleasant to them, the cozylover tends towards the vibe-reader end of things. This story is all about the vibes. Even Gloria, the new priest in town, failed to rub me the wrong way. Quite a feat for a religious professional.

So I got over the "three-stars-just-fine" hump. I couldn't go all the way to four because in a different context there's no way I'd get past three.

We are where we are, so three and a half grateful to be wiled away into a gentler place stars it is.