This post is reprinted with permission from Chicks on the Case, October 29, 2025
At Death’s Dough, the fifth installment in my Deep Dish Mystery series, was inspired by the long, cold winters of my Chicago childhood—and by one of the biggest unsolved heists in U.S. history.
My sister put me on to the story of the Rondout Train Robbery after seeing an article commemorating it in her local paper. We were both struck that the largest train robbery in U.S. history happened not in the Wild West—but just north of Chicago in the 1920s. Millions in loot vanished, mob ties helped the robbers evade justice, and the truth remains a mystery. What better set-up for my clever, pizza-slinging sleuth and her detective boyfriend—who happens to be the great-grandson of Al Capone?
If you’re like me and love a mystery where the past refuses to stay buried, here are five more fabulous cozies (and cozy-adjacent mysteries) that mix history, humor, and heart.
1. How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristin Perrin Wealthy widow Frances Adams has spent sixty years preparing for her own murder—and when she’s finally found dead, her great-niece Annie has to solve it. Set in an English village full of eccentric characters and long-dormant secrets, this witty debut is a perfect pick for readers who like their tea hot and their corpses cold.
2. Mischief Nights Are Murder by Libby Klein Halloween hijinks and historical secrets collide when gluten-free baker Poppy McAllister’s B&B becomes the center of a deadly prank gone wrong. Add in a paranormal researcher, a pet psychic, a century-old diary with Prohibition ties, and Klein’s signature laugh-out-loud wit and you’ve got the ultimate cozy comfort read—assuming you can read while snort-laughing.
3. More Than Sorrow by Vicki Delany This beautifully atmospheric mystery from Canadian mystery-writing powerhouse Vicki Delany (aka Eva Gates) intertwines the story of a modern war correspondent recovering from trauma with the stories of 18th-century Loyalist settlers. It’s a timely reminder that the past is never really past.
4. Murder Once Removed by S.C. Perkins A genealogist with a love of tacos and a nose for trouble discovers a murder from the 19th century—and accidentally ignites a modern political scandal. Perkins’s genealogical series is clever, funny, and full of Texas twang. It’s proof that some families have actual skeletons in the closet.
5. The Study of Secrets by Cynthia Kuhn English professor Lila Maclean’s sabbatical turns sinister when a Victorian mansion, a missing manuscript, and a small-town legend converge to spell murder. Smart and funny, this book showcases the talents of its Agatha Award-winning creator.
Whether you’re chasing gangsters across a frozen lake or uncovering secrets in a dusty archive, these mysteries will keep you turning pages long after your cocoa goes cold. Hope you’ll check out these great reads and pick up At Death’s Dough—out now anywhere books are sold!
No cozy mystery would be complete without a trusty companion or two. Sometimes these come in the form of a team of quirky relatives, like the Calendar Crew of meddling aunties in Mia P. Manansala’s Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mysteries or even a supernatural frenemy, as in Olivia Blacke’s Ruby and Cordelia Mysteries.
In my Deep Dish series, though, the key role of sounding board/emotional supporter/cuddler-in-chief belongs to Butterball, an orange tabby with the heart of a lion and the stomach of a chonk-monster. While Butterball isn’t exactly Sherlock Holmes (he is, after all, just a cat), he has a way of revealing clues that my human sleuth, Delilah O’Leary, might otherwise overlook.
In my latest book, At Death’s Dough, the roles are reversed—this time it’s Butterball who lands in hot water, and it’s Delilah’s turn to rescue him. Writing the story got me thinking about just how much pets bring to a cozy mystery.
Furry (and scaly and feathered) companions have become fixtures in cozy mysteries not just because they’re cute, but because they serve important narrative and dramatic functions. They provide a wholesome counterbalance to the violence at the heart of these stories. They can also ground the sleuth in everyday life, showing a softer, more vulnerable side of a character like Delilah, whose personality can be prickly. Their instincts, antics, and sheer existence can move the plot forward in organic ways. At the same time, they reinforce one of the central pillars of the cozy mystery genre: even in the dark shadow of crime, comfort is close at hand.
Butterball isn’t the only four-legged sidekick kicking butt in the world of cozies. From loyal hounds to opinionated cats, these companions prove that crime-solving can be more fun with a furry gumshoe (gum-paw?) on the case.
Here are six of my favorite books with animal sidekicks…
My favorite kind of reader feedback is when someone tells me they laughed out loud at something I wrote and scared their dog/spit their soda/made fellow passengers on the subway doubt their sanity.
LOLs are my love language.
So I was especially heartened when Holly Adams, the awesomely talented narrator of my Mount Moriah Mysteries and my Deep Dish Mysteries, sent me this outtake of her recording a scene from Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust.
For reference, the dialogue in question involves sous chef Sonya talking to her uncle Avi, an attorney who has come to Geneva Bay to help a friend caught in a sticky situation with the local police. The scene is supposed to read as written below.
“Why did you let her talk?” Sonya said. “You named your dog Miranda, for God’s sake. The only dog in existence named after a constitutional procedure. You always told me not to answer questions if I ever got arrested.”
Avi threw up his hands. “So I’m supposed to tackle your lady friend and stuff a gag in her mouth? I told her to shut her yapper. She didn’t listen to me. Just like your Aunt Ruthie, or little Miranda for that matter. She ate a full tube of your aunt’s red lipstick, did your mom tell you? Now I gotta buy new carpet for the rumpus room.”
Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust
I admit that I, too, sometimes get a giggle out of my characters. The reaction is weirdly detached. I don’t feel like I’m chuckling at my own cleverness or patting myself on the back. I’m laughing at this hilarious group of people who happen to be fictional and live inside my head.
My husband walked by my office one day and caught me in the act–alone, laughing at my computer screen. “You won’t believe what Butterball did!” I said, pointing to the Word document. When I set out to write that scene, I had a vague idea of where it was going, but I had no inkling that Butterball the cat, out of nowhere, would decide to pull off some guffaw-worthy acrobatic antics. That scene is near the end of book three in the series, Public Anchovy Number One, which hits bookstore shelves on December 26th. Hope you’ll find it as LOL-able reading as I did writing.
Bestselling cozy mystery author Julie Anne Lindsay
Julie Anne Lindsay, author of the fabulous Patience Price mystery series, muses on feminism, the importance of community and why writing is fun (in a never-ending torture kind of way). She also explains why she won’t be stabbing you with a shrimp fork any time soon.
Minty Fresh Mysteries (MFM):One of my favorite writers, Ann Patchett, recently said that all of her books, which have very different plots, are fundamentally about groups of strangers being thrown together. Do your books have an overarching (or underlying) theme? Feel free to make up some fancy-sounding literary mumbo jumbo about how your island setting represents the existential isolation of man or how your villain typifies a Kafkaesque archetype of bureaucratic modernity. Or, you know, just tell the truth.
Julie Anne Lindsey (JAL): I like to think my books are laden with feminism. Not the kind that hate men and burn bras, (I mean, do you KNOW what bras cost these days???) I want to write strong, smart women unhindered by an imagined limitation.
Feminism aside, I try to make readers smile and highlight the wonders of community. Friends and family are what life’s all about. We can’t take anything with us when we die and we’re all going to die, so what matters while we’re here is how we live. The relationships we create, how we impact, encourage and change one another is the beautiful part of life. Patience may live on an island, but she’s not one. She’s part of a community who, no matter how different and often times at odds they might be, love her.
MFM: Your Patience Price mysteries feature a quirky young FBI administrator-turned-counselor-turned-amateur sleuth. She’s funny, nosy and unlucky in love–a bit Bridget Jones-esque. In what I read, what I watch, and what I write, I find that I’m I’m drawn to that kind of character, too. What do you think makes characters like Patience so appealing?
JAL: I *LOVE* these characters. I think you and represent a new and upcoming group, though. My mysteries were rejected by all the major publishing houses before Carina Press found and loved Patience. (Who has gone on to hit #1 on Amazon, B&N and Kobo in cozy mystery this year).
The target cozy demographic is something like 35-65 years old women and the guidelines for traditional cozy writing are stringent. Well, the incoming group of 35-year-old readers are different people than the last group. We’re looking for more upbeat sassy women to lead our stories because we can relate to them. We are them in many ways (too many ways LOL). We want a dash of romance. We want cute shoes and hot boys and friends who behave badly so we can live vicariously through them while maintaining the reputation we’ve worked for (or trying to leave a bad one behind). We prefer funny humor over dry wit and we want to see another young lady struggle with her waist line and say the things we long to say like, “Yes. I’ll have the double bacon cheeseburger, fries and a malt.”
Short recap of my super-way-too-long answer: I hope more readers like us will demand more books like ours and publishers will find room on the shelves this new generation of cozy.
MFM: Your books are often described as “cute.” Is that a fair description or does it make you want to poke people in the eye with a shrimp fork?
I think “cute” is a totally fair description. I write cozy as a means of escape for readers. A quick retreat. A reprieve from their troubles. I want the dialogue to be snappy and light, the setting to be gorgeous and the plot to unfold in fast forward. I try to create characters I’d want in my life. Quirky. Lovable. Worthy and fun. Hopefully, quite they’re all quite cute as well.
MFM: You’re an incredibly prolific writer. I’ve previously written that the trick to writing a novel is to think of it like digging a very long ditch. Do you agree with that assessment? And if you disagree, are you prepared to challenge me to a duel to settle the question? If so, I’ll need a bit of notice because I have to get my dueling pistols out of storage.
JAL: Can we do rock, paper scissors? I’m fairly good at that game, so long as you only answer scissors. The pressure to make split second decisions again and again seems to freeze my hand into the rock. Also, I still want shrimp after reading your last question, so I’m leaving for lunch as soon as I finish this interview. You should come with. Bring your fork.
To answer your question (I tend to bunnytrail) I think the ditch is a pretty good analogy. I compare writing to climbing a sand dune. That goes for the writer life in general, too. We climb a while, make some progress toward our goal, then the sand gives way beneath us and we slide back a few feet, only to begin again. And again. Sometimes we have to start fresh from the bottom. Also, there’s the relentless desert sun of every-single-other author’s amazing success beating down on us while we toil fruitlessly. Writing is not for the weak or tender hearted. It’s grueling and occasionally mean. If you ever make it to the top of the dune, there will be another, taller one waiting, harder one climb and with tougher critics.
What a glamorous picture we make! I don’t know why everyone doesn’t stop what they’re doing right now and write a novel. Come on, everyone, join us on the chain gang!
MFM: You and I have both written books set on islands. For me, part of the appeal was being able to take a mini vacation to the Outer Banks every time I sat down to write my second novel, A Death in Duck. Is Chincoteague Island a place you like to mentally vacation?
JAL: Oh, definitely! In fact, I visited Chincoteague years before I had a clue I’d ever write anything longer than a grocery list. The place stayed with me. I tell people I brought part of it home in my soul. My mind wanders there daily and when it came time to write a mystery, there was no place else I wanted to set it. Chincoteague is my idea of perfection. I’d gladly uproot the family and move if someone would help me buy the house. Offers? Anyone? No realtors. That wasn’t what I meant by help.
MFM: Funny books are sometimes thought of as fluffy, and yet it’s commonly acknowledged among writers that “funny” is way harder to achieve than “creepy,” “steamy” or “exciting.” Do you find it easy to weave humor into your books? Do you take issue with the idea that funny books are light reading? And if you do take issue, maybe together we can beat up those people who say that. I’ll just need a couple of days to prepare because my bowstaff is also in storage.
JAL: You have a lot of weaponry. I’m impressed and a little intimidated by you right now. My arsenal includes: scream and run. Also hide, but I’m not that great at hide. My run isn’t awesome either, but my scream? A masterpiece. I think I could do the scream for horror movies. My fear of mostly everything has developed the scream over the years.
I’m bunnytrailing. Let me reread the question…..
Yes. I like smiling. Writing the light stuff is much easier or more natural for me than the dark stuff. I think I was born half silly and that helps. It didn’t help in school or my dating years, but definitely now.
Are my stories fluff? **Insert nerd rage here!!!** Kidding. Maybe. I guess it depends on your perspective. My goal as an author is to make people smile, so if that goal isn’t lofty enough for those trying to change the world with global awareness while I’m trying to change it with laughter, then, I guess I write fluff.
I like to think that the woman who has cried out all her tears and picks up one of my books for an escape … if she gets lost in my words and finds a smile on her face, then how can fluff be bad? Where’s the negative side to “fluff” that can do that?
I’m proud of my fluff. #TeamFluff
If anyone’s still reading this blog post and thinking they need more fluff in their lives, I hope you’ll consider one of my Patience Price Mysteries. The third installment is a new release and you don’t need to have read the others to fall into the story. Here’s a bit about it:
Murder in Real Time With the chaos of summer tourists and fall birders out of town, counselor Patience Price is looking forward to the quiet life she remembers. She longs for some peace. And an apple fritter. But the calm is cut short when a reality show sets up camp to film a special about ghosts on her little island. Now fans, reporters and crew have flocked to sleepy Chincoteague. Who knew ghost hunters had an entourage?
When two cast members are killed in a room at the local B&B—a room usually occupied by Patience’s FBI agent boyfriend, Sebastian—she finds herself on the case. Sebastian doesn’t want Patience ruffling any feathers but, as always, she can’t help herself.
Patience promises to let Sebastian handle the investigation—he is FBI, after all—but after a drive-by shooting, her wicked curiosity gets the best of her. And with the TV show forging ahead with filming, the list of suspects (and the line of food trucks) only grows. But has the shooter already flown the coop? And how do you find a killer when you don’t know who the target is?
About Julie: Julie Anne Lindsey is a multi-genre author who writes the stories that keep her up at night. She’s a self-proclaimed nerd with a penchant for words and proclivity for fun. Julie lives in rural Ohio with her husband and three small children. Today, she hopes to make someone smile. One day she plans to change the world.
Murder in Real Time is the conclusion to The Patience Price Mysteries series, from Carina Press.
