Cozy Mystery Garden

Restaurant critic Derek Schumaker, notorious for his bitter reviews, is about to visit Daisy's Tea Garden, and Daisy and Aunt Iris are simmering with anxiety. A bad word from the culinary curmudgeon could really hurt their business, but Daisy tries to stay confident. After all, how can he resist her cucumber sandwiches with pimento spread—not to mention the cheesy cauliflower soup and strawberry walnut salad?

A new cozy mystery series from USA Today best-selling author Dale Mayer. Follow gardener and amateur sleuth Doreen Montgomery - and her amusing and mostly lovable cat, dog, and parrot - as they catch murderers and solve crimes in lovely Kelowna, British Columbia.

Follow gardener and amateur sleuth Doreen Montgomery - and her amusing and mostly lovable cat, dog, and parrot - as they catch murderers and solve crimes in lovely Kelowna, British Columbia. Riches to rags...chaos quiets...crime is circling...and cold cases never cease.... After almost a month in picturesque Kelowna, Doreen Montgomery still can’t keep her notoriety to a minimum or her nose out of other people’s business. Now, those suffering from the loss of a loved one seek her out, wanting her help.

Daisy's orange pekoe is flowing at a fundraiser - and she's also made a new friend, Piper, a young woman whose hopes for motherhood were dashed by a foul-up at a fertility clinic. But before they can settle into a long conversation, the event is disrupted by masked protestors who object to building a shelter in Willow Creek. Among the angry crowd is Eli - who left his Amish community some time ago, with help from a lawyer named Hiram.

Doreen is overwhelmed with joy when she sees all the volunteers who show up to help get her deck addition built. Most of the men are cops, friends of Corporal Mack Moreau’s, and are happy to help Mack’s special friend and the lady who has helped solve so many crimes for them with a spot of home renovation. But before the deck improvement can be finished, duty calls, and the cops are called away on a case. Another gray-haired lady has dropped dead. Yet another heart attack victim is added to the long line of previous ones.

One night 10 years ago, eight-year-old Crystal, vanished from her bed in her parents’ house, the only clue a footprint in the flowerbed below the girl’s window. Now that footprint’s reappeared, this time at the scene of another crime, and Doreen is under strict orders not to stick her nose into Corporal Mack Moreau’s new investigation. But while Mack is busy with the new case, Doreen figures it can’t hurt if she just takes a quick look at the old one. Her house is empty, her antiques removed, and she has time on her hands.

Doreen’s success at solving murders has hit the newswires across the country, but all Doreen wants is to be left alone. She has antiques to get to the auction house and a relationship with Corporal Mack Moreau to work out, not to mention a new friendship to nurture with Penny, Doreen’s first friend in Kelowna, and Doreen doesn’t want to ruin things.

An elderly spinster murdered. Thirty dogs in the house. Shelter overwhelmed. Help! When Maggie Ryan, a retired schoolteacher, is murdered, and over thirty dogs are discovered living in her home, the Cedar Bay Animal Shelter is stretched beyond its meager resources. Join Kelly, the owner of Kelly's Koffee Shop, and her husband Sheriff Mike, along with a bulldog puppy named Max, and Sanyu, an Akita guard dog, as they literally have to sniff out the murderer before they become the next victims.

Antique-hunting Daphne Brewster is back for more sleuthing in Book 2 of Paula Sutton's beloved murder mystery series. Return to the picturesque village of Norfolk's Pudding Corner - a glorious haven of golden field, winding cobbled lanes and... murder.

Finding an Uzi in the urn at the shattered mausoleum is exciting and frustrating. Yet, Doreen can’t delve into the case, and Mack has been firm about that. She struggles to focus on other cases from her journalist files, in particular the Bob Small file. Only her plan goes off the rails when Nan and her cronies show up at her door with the Rosemoor bus, intent on heading to the excitement happening at the cemetery.

My divorce is still fresh. I'm not even forty. Quite. The last thing I need is pressure to step right into the life Nanna made for herself in Crescent Bay. What do I need with an 1888 Victorian mansion in a tiny northern California coastal town? I live by myself now. But I'm not alone here. There are those half-heard whispers in the night, the reappearance of Nanna's lost cat...and then there's the murder. Cherise Tillson died on the floor of the Museum of the Odd and Wondrous, the most eccentric piece of my inheritance, the day after I got to town.

Who knew a simple trip to the consignment store would find Wendy being strong-armed by two strangers? So not allowed—especially as it could affect Doreen getting her month-end check! Trying to get to the bottom of this is one convoluted story to sort out. Corporal Mack Moreau is not at all happy with Doreen’s new male friend, Bernard, who has the money to keep her in the style she was accustomed to. However, Mack is happy Doreen is staying out of his cases. If only she could stay out of trouble! Then again, Doreen can find trouble like this without any effort on her part.

Being a suspect in the murder of her ex-lawyer is not the fun Doreen thought it would be. And, of course, she’s been ordered to stay away from the case, but she can’t help being interested. So, she enlists Mack’s brother, Nick - her new lawyer - to help. Mack’s first priority is to clear Doreen as a suspect. No one in their right mind would seriously believe she’d done the deed, of course.

What was supposed to be a leisurely stroll through a peaceful cemetery after a recent funeral turns into the start of a new case. Someone clobbers Doreen over the head and leaves her facedown among the funeral flowers. Is it random violence? Revenge? A warning of worse to come?

Doreen knows her relationship with the police captain has always been on thin ground. She has helped them solve a lot of cases, but she’s quadrupled their work and constantly gets in their way. So no one is more surprised than Doreen when the captain stops by and asks for a personal favor, concerning a cold case from his own childhood.

Riches to rags...Chaos has calmed...At least while out on the lake...Until poison is found, blowing up the peace again...Enjoying a beautiful day on the lake, while Doreen tries her hand at paddleboarding, ends up on an odd note after finding poison in a bed of pansies. She garners a tidbit of information out of her BFF, Corporal Mack Moreau, about a man who’d recently walked into the emergency room, complaining he’d been poisoned.

When the journey to Rosemoor for a celebratory evening turns deadly, Doreen’s life is flipped on her head. She can only watch in horror as Mack is shot right in front of her. Horrified, she vows to solve this case and fast, before the shooter realizes he failed and comes back for a second attempt. Corporal Mack Moreau has been shot before, but this time it’s way worse because Doreen watched it all happen. Now she’s planning to catch the shooter before Mack even starts to heal. She’s yet to consider that maybe the shooter wasn’t after Mack but really wanted to shoot her.

Summer Walsh will do anything to avoid going back into law enforcement, so when she has an opportunity to leave Nashville and run a day care center in Atlanta, she grabs it. To her parents' chagrin, she stumbles on another dead body and can't resist the urge to get involved. Over the next several days, Summer encounters several suspects including a man who has threatened to take down the victim's tree that drops fruit into his yard, a nosy neighbor, a man who will stop at nothing to get her car, and the garden club president who thinks the victim is pond scum.

Flush with success from solving a decade-old kidnapping case, Doreen can’t wait to find out what’s next in her one-woman crusade to clean up Kelowna’s cold crimes. But before she can unearth another old case to sink her teeth into, she must tie up some loose ends from the last one. Steve Albright, fixer for the local biker gang, has made it clear that he blames Doreen for sending his friend Penny Jordan to prison. Steve even suggests that Doreen might have set up Penny Jordan. While Doreen wouldn’t do that, she’s afraid that other people might believe Steve.

In a loft in the 18th Arrondissment near Montmartre, Jamie Litton has become intoxicated with his life as a member of Parisian Cafe Society. A group of artists, musicians, and poets unconditionally embrace their newest member, not knowing that this somewhat eccentric man hides a dangerous secret. His best friend Ben Foulof, a missing journalist, is on the run from a powerful news organization that wants its rogue agent back - dead or alive.