Josephine West & the Christmas Corpse

Josephine West 1920s Mysteries #2

by Beth Byers, Ann Warren

December 1921It’s Christmas in Carmel-By-the-Sea, and Josephine West is ready to dive into the celebrations.

There’s a slew of things to do complete with a live nativity, Santa Claus visiting the children, and tree right in the center of town. Josephine gets pulled into helping with as one of Santa’s elves. In between, delivering cookie to the elderly, helping children build gingerbread houses, and visiting the sick, Josephine stumbles over the most unexpected of a Christmas corpse.

Who would kill one of Santa’s elves and why? Was Josephine in danger as well? And would she discover the killer before she, too, falls victim?

149 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 17, 2023

Reviews

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Assigned to report on Carmel-By-the-Sea's upcoming Christmas celebrations, Josephine promptly talked into donning an elf costume herself. Her stint entertaining local children is soon interrupted when she finds a fellow elf murdered beneath the Christmas tree and abandons her elf costume to don her hobby detective hat...

Another quick and entertaining read. Less of Josephine's excessively annoying and overbearing family in this one, so I enjoyed it more than the first book.

[Mary Hamilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

wish I could give more stars but…

I’ve always loved Beth Beyers writing and have read most series, the plots and characters are great. But, the lack of editing is distracting and I feel disrespectful to her readers. Please, straighten out this problem or I will soon be giving up on the books. This is the 3rd one where I’ve spent more time then I should have to trying to figure out what she’s trying to say!

[S A R · Rating 3 out of 5]

Needs editing

I'm enjoying this series but this book needed some serious editing. There were lots of incorrect words, English words instead of American, missing names ( place holders that were never filled in.) There were plot errors. It was kind of a hot mess. Slow down Beth. This could have been another great cozy but there were too many errors to ignore this time.

[Lisa Bjornstad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good story, but…

…this book needs to be proofread! Copious spelling, punctuation, and grammatical error’s make it incredibly distracting. I didn’t notice this is Book 1, but Book 2 is rife with errors. Please, authors, hire a professional proofreader!

[Rebecca Wetzel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Puppies,lemons and life!

Josephine is learning alot about being a widow, how to start over and what people really mean and say. Follow her on a Christmas mystery with a speakeasy, beautiful dresses and why people do what they do.

[beckey · Rating 5 out of 5]

great

I like the time. I like the characters I like the mysteries and that it’s still a relaxing book to read.