Hollyberry Homicide (A Berry Basket Mystery) (utgåvan 2020)

When a young woman, witnesses a very old man collapse at a model train show, she rushes to find help. She runs into her employer, Marlee Jacob, who returns to sit with him while medical aid is found. Unfortunately, Marlee realizes immediately that the man is dead While she waits for someone to collect the body, she picks up the bag of gingerbread cookies he dropped & wipes up the crumbs from the cookie he was eating. Without thinking, she shoves the crumbs in her pocket and forgets about them...until she feeds them to a squirrel a few days later.

Hollyberry Homicide is the fifth cozy mystery in A Berry Basket Mystery series by author Sharon Farrow. Set in Oriole Point, Michigan during the Christmas seasons, it offers a strong, intelligent female protagonist in Marlee Jacob and of course, given her name, a nod to Charles’ Dickens A Christmas Carol. There are plenty of twists and turn, suspects and red herrings to keep the reader guessing who the real murderer is. Although part of a series, Hollyberry Homicide works well as a stand-alone and I recommend it anyone who enjoys holiday cozies.

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The Summer of 2019 saw me reading a lot of cozy mysteries and they were all starting to feel the same. Still enjoyable, but no real wow factor. I was getting burnt out on the genre.

And then Mulberry Mischief, the fourth book in A Berry Basket Mysteries, found its way into my life and my enjoyment for cozies was reignited. Sharon Farrow introduced me to very well developed characters and a town I knew I would want to visit again. But what really stood out to me was that she actually had some nasty characters, and not just someone who died right away and we find out they weren’t very nice. These evil characters were present throughout the story and added even more depth to the book.

So when I saw Hollyberry Homicide was coming out I knew I would be reading it. And I was not disappointed. Farrow continues developing her characters, and even better, something is always happening. In some cozies most of the story is just the sleuth running around tracking down clues and talking to suspects. But in A Berry Basket Mysteries, we are not only engaged in Marlee’s life, but those of her friends and co-workers… even with the people that Marlee can’t stand!

Farrow also incorporates the Christmas theme really well. In some cozies it’s more so for the cover art and mentioned a couple of times in the book, but not so in Hollyberry Homicide. You get Christmas from Marlee’s obsession with decorating her house and store, to the various times she is preparing food for her shop and parties, to the town’s huge Christmas tree falling over numerous times because of the lake effect winds. It seems like every chapter mentions the holidays, but it’s done well.

As for the murder, there are lots of suspects whose secrets slowly come out over the course of the book. I thought for sure I knew who the killer was, but I was wrong. And I am so happy with who the killer turned out to be.
You don’t need to start A Berry Basket Mystery series from the beginning because Farrow knows how to fold the reader into the story without them becoming lost. But if you do decide you want to (and you should because it’s a great series!), then the first book is Dying for Strawberries. And while you’re at it, you may as well buy all the rest of the books in the series too! ( )

Marlee Jacob lives in Oriole Point, Michigan, and owns The Berry Basket, a shop with all things connected to berries of all varieties. It's nearing Christmas, and she's decorated the shop to within an inch of its life -- leaving barely enough room for employees and customers to move through, much to the consternation of her employees.

Marlee is attending a model train show with her boyfriend Kit, a homicide detective, when her employee Gillian runs up to her to tell her that she's found a dead man. When Marlee investigates, she discovers that the elderly man is indeed dead, holding a bag of gingerbread men, with crumbs around his mouth. While everyone agrees that he died of old age, Marlee isn't sure about that...especially when she discovers that his relatives might have wanted him out of the way and his attorney thinks so, too.

It seems Everett Hostetter was not a likable man. Unfortunately, he also played Jacob Marley in the local production of A Christmas Carol for years in return for funding the theater. When Marlee is pressed into accepting the role, she suddenly becomes a target. But is it due to the fact that she's asking questions, or the fact that she might actually be getting closer to the answer?...

This is the fifth book in the series and in my estimation the best of the lot. Marlee has a temporary house guest in Natasha, her Russian friend, who sold her home and is awaiting her condo to be finished, and is a hoot in this book. Piper is back to being her usual self, obsessed and crazed, but for some odd reason I still enjoy having her around. But being the holiday, everyone is is busy, and Marlee more so with her added 'appearance' in the play and being nagged by the other actors to learn her lines.

But what's bothering her most is that she knows Everett was murdered, and now she needs to find out why, considering he was ninety-five and probably didn't have many years left anyway. What ensues is a tale of greed and more greed, all perpetrated by several people who may have been the sole heir to his considerable fortune. But finding out the correct person may not be as easy as she thinks, and when she starts looking into their pasts, she discovers they all had a reason to want him gone.

We still have the Christmas season interspersed in the story, so it feels like the holiday along with the mystery itself. I really enjoyed this story and the direction that it's taking everyone's lives, and I do like all Marlee's friends as well. When the murderer is discovered, it comes as a bit of a surprise, but a good one at that (and I won't say why but anyone who's read my reviews will figure it out soon enough). In the end, everything comes together nicely and I look forward to the next in the series. Highly recommended. ( )

small-business, small-town, family-dynamics, friendship, amateur-sleuth, law-enforcement, investigation, cozy-mystery*****

The first corpse was a wealthy 95 year old curmudgeon who always played Marley in the local production of A Christmas Carol, so everyone assumed that it was natural causes. Lots more about him came out after that and the play seemed cursed as players continued to have unexpected problems. The small but fairly affluent town had lots of secrets and divas to add to the mysteries that were as thick on the ground as the lake effect snow. A really good whodunit with some fun situational humor.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Kensington Books via NetGalley. ( )