A fun and funny cozy mystery set in ritz Bel Air

Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge (A Jaine Austen Mystery)

By: Laura Levine

Rating: 5 of 5

The Jaine Austen mystery series is a new to me series. Read this book, it wasn’t until halfway through that I realized there were many other books in this long term series. That means that this book can absolutely be read stand-alone.

Our sleuth is Jaine Austen, a writer (though of ad material and not wonderful books of the Regency period.) Jaine is talked/conned into house-sitting by her best buddy Lance. Her cat, Prozac, finds other digs and settles in quite well.

When a murder occurs (what else in a cozy murder mystery) and Jaine comes under suspicion (ditto cozy murder mystery), she kicks into high gear to solve the crime. Only problem is, just about everyone who knew the victim had really good reasons to knock him off.

Added into this fun are a series of emails from Jaine’s mother and her father – describing events on a cruise from two very different perspectives. I really enjoyed this comic moments away from the whodunnit.

As I mentioned, the book can be read stand-alone but it certainly make me eager to go back into the back list of the series and buy and read them from the beginning.

I was provided a digital advance reader copy of this book by the publisher via Netgalley.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.