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Bed-and-Breakfast Mysteries #9
Auntie Mayhem
Mary Dahem (A bed in breakfast mystery) Auntie Mayhem
Mass Market Paperback
First published March 1, 1996
46 people are currently reading
487 people want to read
About the author
Mary Daheim
94 books441 followersMary Rene Richardson Daheim was an American writer of romance and mystery novels.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
April 13, 2011
One of the better from the series. I liked the English countryside setting and the "who dunnit" was more complicated than the others have been.
March 11, 2017
Just what the doctor ordered for a cold snowy winter day...an authentic British mystery complete with an old family country manor, family members in need of money, faithful servants, missing relatives, class snobbery and quirky people all ruled by Aunt Pet a 90 something dowager who rules the purse strings and thereby her family. American cousins Judith and Renie plan a short vacation in England while their husbands fish in Scotland. Judith has been asked by Claire, sister-in- law to Renie's British pen pal, to evaluate her family's home for a bed and breakfast. Claire expects to inherit the homestead at Aunt Pet's passing. They are surprised by the enormity of the house and property and the personality of Aunt Pet. When Aunt Pet is murdered, Judith and Renie must sift through all the family problems and secrets to solve the murder in time to unite with their husbands on the appointed day. A fun read.
July 28, 2017
Love these books!!
I love the characters. The plots are great. They keep you guessing until the end. This is my second time reading this series. Enjoyed them each time. I like the humor in them too.
I love the characters. The plots are great. They keep you guessing until the end. This is my second time reading this series. Enjoyed them each time. I like the humor in them too.
October 11, 2012
Fun English countryside mystery. Love how family history seems to play a part in so many of these stories. The bad part is it seems I always spend half the book figuring out what year it is.
February 17, 2017
Not one of the best books I have read but not that bad. It's based in England and the story was okay. I have have Renee and Judith stateside.
December 10, 2017
The book started slow for me, but once it got going I loved all the clues, family secrets, and misdirection. It was like an Agatha Christie type mystery, which I love.
June 7, 2025
I guess this qualifies as a cozy mystery. Two Americans are the main characters who visit a place in England and try to solve a murder. There’s something very cliché about the book and, despite completing it, I never felt any great desire to read or finish it. I think cozy mysteries are good light reading, that are not really meant for greatly involved reading experiences.
September 21, 2025
Good book. The only struggle I had with it was it moved extremely slow at the beginning. I had a hard time staying interested in it. I kept going. It wasn't until I was 3/4 of the way through the book that it started to become interesting and displayed some good humor. The main characters were interesting, but quite boring at the start. That all changed toward the end. Recommend.
February 2, 2018
Judith and Renie go to England to give advice on running a bed and breakfast and the husbands hope to go fishing in Scotland. Now what could go wrong with this, first the elderly aunt is murdered and the husbands fishing trip goes awry what else could go wrong.
April 17, 2025
Judith and Renie are in Britain again. They went to see an old Estate. Of course there is a murder and Judith had to find out who was the killer. There are a lot of suspects, be sure and read it, to find out who the murderer was.
November 17, 2018
The cousins are in jolly old England when the murder occurs in this book. There are many laugh out loud parts in this book. I really enjoyed the easy reading style.
January 9, 2019
Two gals on the hunt for the killer in a quintessential English country village. Easy, light entertainment read.
April 8, 2019
Kept me guessing
July 11, 2019
Judith and cuz Renie are vacationing in the UK with their hubbies when they are caught up in a murder at “Ravenscroft Housem
August 22, 2019
Great book. I really enjoyed it.
April 20, 2020
I quite enjoyed this one.
May 31, 2020
The two couples are on vacation in England. While Joe and Bill are fishing, Judith and Renie solve a murder at an English country home. I like the series and it's a fun fast read.
August 22, 2020
This episode was interesting. I think it was, in many ways, a pretty pure homage to its forbears, with the Christie-like old English manor house.
April 1, 2021
I enjoy this series. If you want to laugh, and enjoy guessing the suspect in a house full of crazy, this is the read for you.
July 24, 2016
I have an affinity for cozy mysteries. They generally aren't written in pursuit of a spot on the bestseller list; rather, cozies are written to give the reader a sense of comfort and calm (ironically, by way of murder).
My mom read cozies to escape her three eccentric young daughters and grumpy husband: one daughter, the artist, painted five-foot tall green flowers on the side of the freshly painted rental when she was four; the adventurous daughter asked which way north was, and was found by neighbors five hours later walking up the beach, wearing a backpack, in pursuit of Santa in the North Pole (we lived on an island--she wasn't the brightest of the three of us); and the oldest daughter (that would be I) caused her first-year kindergarten teacher to quit by demanding that all classroom toy soldiers and toy weapons be removed from the classroom so that her classmates would not become violent adults, and that the teacher immediately stop smoking on her breaks because she would surely die of lung cancer. As to my mother's husband, he had some strange notion that feeding 40 stray cats, a stray goat, a duck, and 4 turtles (not stray) out of a 2-bedroom apartment was odd. He also became irrationally upset when the cat gave birth in his shoe. So you see, for my mother, it was either read a cozy or drink (or possibly dispose of the children and husband).
Years later, when my grandmother came to live with us (bigger house, different country, revolving pet door, dad retired and usually lost in Best Buy, girls now goth, theater geek, and raver) we slowly replaced her true crime books with cozies in order to keep her from roaming the house at night after taking her pain pills, looking for the Son of Sam whilst armed with a shoe horn.
And all this is how I came to read cozies myself, because they were always there to help me escape my crazy family, you could carry on a screaming match with a sibling and not miss much in the book, and thanks to grandma's Dahmer intervention, there were always a shitload in the house. (Serious reading was done away from the insane people.)I have an affinity for cozy mysteries. They generally aren't written in pursuit of a spot on the bestseller list; rather, cozies are written to give the reader a sense of comfort and calm (ironically, by way of murder).
My mom read cozies to escape her three eccentric young daughters and grumpy husband: one daughter, the artist, painted five-foot tall green flowers on the side of the freshly painted rental when she was four; the adventurous daughter asked which way north was, and was found by neighbors five hours later walking up the beach, wearing a backpack, in pursuit of Santa in the North Pole (we lived on an island--she wasn't the brightest of the three of us); and the oldest daughter (that would be I) caused her first-year kindergarten teacher to quit by demanding that all classroom toy soldiers and toy weapons be removed from the classroom so that her classmates would not become violent adults, and that the teacher immediately stop smoking on her breaks because she would surely die of lung cancer. As to my mother's husband, he had some strange notion that feeding 40 stray cats, a stray goat, a duck, and 4 turtles (not stray) out of a 2-bedroom apartment was odd. He also became irrationally upset when the cat gave birth in his shoe. So you see, for my mother, it was either read a cozy or drink (or possibly dispose of the children and husband).
Years later, when my grandmother came to live with us (bigger house, different country, revolving pet door, dad retired and usually lost in Best Buy, girls now goth, theater geek, and raver) we slowly replaced her true crime books with cozies in order to keep her from roaming the house at night after taking her pain pills, looking for the Son of Sam whilst armed with a shoe horn.
And all this is how I came to read cozies myself, because they were always there to help me escape my crazy family, you could carry on a screaming match with a sibling and not miss much in the book, and thanks to grandma's Dahmer intervention, there were always a shitload in the house. (Serious reading was done away from the insane people.)
My mom read cozies to escape her three eccentric young daughters and grumpy husband: one daughter, the artist, painted five-foot tall green flowers on the side of the freshly painted rental when she was four; the adventurous daughter asked which way north was, and was found by neighbors five hours later walking up the beach, wearing a backpack, in pursuit of Santa in the North Pole (we lived on an island--she wasn't the brightest of the three of us); and the oldest daughter (that would be I) caused her first-year kindergarten teacher to quit by demanding that all classroom toy soldiers and toy weapons be removed from the classroom so that her classmates would not become violent adults, and that the teacher immediately stop smoking on her breaks because she would surely die of lung cancer. As to my mother's husband, he had some strange notion that feeding 40 stray cats, a stray goat, a duck, and 4 turtles (not stray) out of a 2-bedroom apartment was odd. He also became irrationally upset when the cat gave birth in his shoe. So you see, for my mother, it was either read a cozy or drink (or possibly dispose of the children and husband).
Years later, when my grandmother came to live with us (bigger house, different country, revolving pet door, dad retired and usually lost in Best Buy, girls now goth, theater geek, and raver) we slowly replaced her true crime books with cozies in order to keep her from roaming the house at night after taking her pain pills, looking for the Son of Sam whilst armed with a shoe horn.
And all this is how I came to read cozies myself, because they were always there to help me escape my crazy family, you could carry on a screaming match with a sibling and not miss much in the book, and thanks to grandma's Dahmer intervention, there were always a shitload in the house. (Serious reading was done away from the insane people.)I have an affinity for cozy mysteries. They generally aren't written in pursuit of a spot on the bestseller list; rather, cozies are written to give the reader a sense of comfort and calm (ironically, by way of murder).
My mom read cozies to escape her three eccentric young daughters and grumpy husband: one daughter, the artist, painted five-foot tall green flowers on the side of the freshly painted rental when she was four; the adventurous daughter asked which way north was, and was found by neighbors five hours later walking up the beach, wearing a backpack, in pursuit of Santa in the North Pole (we lived on an island--she wasn't the brightest of the three of us); and the oldest daughter (that would be I) caused her first-year kindergarten teacher to quit by demanding that all classroom toy soldiers and toy weapons be removed from the classroom so that her classmates would not become violent adults, and that the teacher immediately stop smoking on her breaks because she would surely die of lung cancer. As to my mother's husband, he had some strange notion that feeding 40 stray cats, a stray goat, a duck, and 4 turtles (not stray) out of a 2-bedroom apartment was odd. He also became irrationally upset when the cat gave birth in his shoe. So you see, for my mother, it was either read a cozy or drink (or possibly dispose of the children and husband).
Years later, when my grandmother came to live with us (bigger house, different country, revolving pet door, dad retired and usually lost in Best Buy, girls now goth, theater geek, and raver) we slowly replaced her true crime books with cozies in order to keep her from roaming the house at night after taking her pain pills, looking for the Son of Sam whilst armed with a shoe horn.
And all this is how I came to read cozies myself, because they were always there to help me escape my crazy family, you could carry on a screaming match with a sibling and not miss much in the book, and thanks to grandma's Dahmer intervention, there were always a shitload in the house. (Serious reading was done away from the insane people.)
May 20, 2014
I enjoy this series. Renie and Judith are cousins, and they are as close as sisters. Their mothers are sisters and take sibling rivalry to a whole new level. They are nasty, insulting and constantly complain...but you can't help but love them...because you are SO GLAD they aren't your mother. As a cozy mystery, there is a body that turns up...but there isn't any blood and guts. Judith and Renie always stumble into the body finding and somehow end up solving the murder. However, Renie is tiny and tends to think she WILL DIE if she doesn't eat every 2 hours. She gets rather emphatic on this.
This one takes place in England, so it was rather fun to get some insight into the English country side and all that. Definitely worth a read if you'd like some humor thrown in with your homicide!
This one takes place in England, so it was rather fun to get some insight into the English country side and all that. Definitely worth a read if you'd like some humor thrown in with your homicide!
March 22, 2013
I see a problem already. No self-respecting person of any upbringing OTHER than American would dare call the game with a black and white ball played by kicking goals "soccer." Nope. To the rest of the world...that is football.
Yeah...I was way off. That was just an editing error. This was another of those twisted, secretive, crazy extended families plus loads of money.
The setting was quaint, the characters funny, and it was away from the States as well as the B&B so it was a good one.
Yeah...I was way off. That was just an editing error. This was another of those twisted, secretive, crazy extended families plus loads of money.
The setting was quaint, the characters funny, and it was away from the States as well as the B&B so it was a good one.
September 30, 2008
Interestingly enough, I read this Mary Daheim book after reading "Scots on the Rocks" where it was mentioned a few times. This was the first time the cousins had been to England where Scots was the second time. A bit hard to get into as I hated the family they were staying with and found it tough to keep the characters straight.
August 3, 2010
I seem to be on a Read-A-Mystery-A-Day kick right now. Too hot outside in the afternoon to do much, so I sit in my recliner, cold drink (mostly water these days) at hand, and usually a cat on my lap, and I read all afternoon into the evening. I have a stack of Mary Daheim B&B mysteries to read, so this afternoon, I'll be delving into the next one.
February 3, 2013
Once again an intriguig mystery from Mary Daheim. Am enjoying working my way throught the complete Bed & Breakfast Mystery series.
The cousins Judith and Renie have a great relationship, even better than sisters and their mothers well, they are two old ladies I wouldn't like to come up against.
The cousins Judith and Renie have a great relationship, even better than sisters and their mothers well, they are two old ladies I wouldn't like to come up against.
April 29, 2015
I liked the twist in this book: bed-and-breakfast owner Judith Flynn travels to England for a vacation and to visit a country home to offer consultation on turning it into a B&B. And as it often happens at her own b&b, the manor's owner's sudden death is ruled a homicide. Judith and her cousin, Renie, put on their sleuth hats to solve the murder as well as a long-cold case.
January 9, 2011
A novel about 2 American friends (cousins) visiting England, and, of course, solving the mystery. Good story, even though I'm not into novels with a Great Britain setting. Stresses the importance of having a valid will and copies of it several places!
July 29, 2013
An English manor house becoming a B&B? Sign me up! This one was twisty in the plot with who did the dirty deed. I love how Gertrude can affect Judith where ever she may be in the world... that old woman is growing on me...
July 26, 2016
Disclaimer: I think this series is marginal, the cousins are OK but the the other characters don't seem real. This book is par; but the ending drama-moment not only is cliche, it is particularly unbelievable to the point it leaves me quite annoyed.
October 26, 2014
Again, I thoroughly enjoy the Bed and Breakfast mysteries by Mary Daheim. In this book Judith and Renie go to England and visit a rural estate. Of course, there is a murder that Judith works to solve. Also, are a lot of hidden secrets that must be explored to eliminate suspects.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews