Cozy Mysteries

By K. L. Bridgewater

Growing up as a young child in the eighties and coming of age in the nineties, I would spend all summer chasing the sunlight, playing with my friends while we used our imagination and running around the neighborhood. Mom would never let us stay inside when the sun streamed in the window and the heat baked us by the day. But when Mom did allow us to linger in the house, we were allowed to watch one hour of television. It was usually Matlock with Andy Griffith or Murder, She Wrote with Angela Lansbury. You know, those hour long shows that were the precursor to CSI, Castle, and Law and Order. The movie started with someone getting killed. Either someone comes across a dead body at work or the viewer hears a gun shot as they see a black gloved hand holding gun while pointing it at someone across the room. Then the rest of the episode features Ben Matlock running around with his associates, watching people and questioning people who could have been related.

This might have been my introductions to TV crime shows. Still today, I watch them and enjoy trying to solve the murder before the television cast does. My husband doesn't like those types of shows and always shakes his head when he comes in and I'm engrossed in the latest episode. Reading suspense as my chosen genre. It makes sense that I gravitate writing in the suspense genre.

However, Revell publishing gave me a complimentary copy of Lorena McCourtney's latest book Death Takes a Ride. It fits along the cozy mystery line of books. Cate Kincaid is an amateur private investigator, who took the position to help her Uncle Joe when he ended up in the hospital, and she was currently unemployed. As the third book in the series, she has enjoyed being a private investigator. In this book, she actually earns her Private Investigator license, and Uncle Joe writes the company into her name.

The character of Cate Kincaid is totally believable as a cozy mysteries PI. She fumbles around and comes up with a number of different excuses internally to explain her presence while snooping at a person of interest's house. I enjoyed how McCourtney gave her quirks. Cate is not all confident in her relationship with Mitch and doubts her intentions.  Very believable.

Likewise, the plot of the story read like an episode of Matlock. The story starts off with Cate Kincaid going to a warehouse late at night to pick someone up for a church event, but in the process of waiting, a gun shot echoes through the tin warehouse. At first, the murder seems cut and dry, but as we follow Cate along as she questions different people, we realize they're might be more to the case.

I enjoyed the book as my first introduction to Lorena McCourtney's book. It made me nostalgia for the television mysteries that introduced me to crime shows. I want to go out and purchase her other books and read them now. Thank you, Lorena McCourtney. As if my to-be read pile wasn't high enough. Now I have to go and add some more books.

Do you read cozy mysteries? Why not try Lorena McCourtney. She deserves more gusto for her books. If you watch crime shows, what was the first crime show you ever watched?

I received a complimentary copy of Death Takes a Ride from Revell Publishing. All my opinions are my own.