The Shady River Murders

by Kathy Cohen

Shirley Steele is doing her best to settle into her hobby farm in Minnesota near her son and daughter-in-law. Unfortunately, she no longer has a barn in which to store anything, two space heaters are not proving sufficient to warm her small house, and winter is on its way.

But . . . never mind.

One night, she sees a light burning in the empty house down the road. How can that be? All her woes forgotten, she heads out to investigate. Soon Shirley and her neighbor Norma are off on a dangerous hunt to find a killer in their town.

210 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 27, 2022

Reviews

[Lyndy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spunky retiree turned amateur detective ✅
Funny little animal sidekicks ✅
Multiple murders ✅

All in all, a very pleasant cozy that I stumbled across by accident.

[Christine Goodnough · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only part of this story is a cozy mystery. Two women have been strangled and the main character, Shirley, has decided to discover whodunit. But so much else going on. Shirley's focus runs from her chilly home to her relationship with her son and his wife, to her menagerie, with a long rehash of a couple of dreams she's had. The story's told in first person, and the many random thought threads she follows left me feeling like she's mumbling to herself all the time.

A divorcee, Shirley is living in a house in Minnesota with no heat, doesn't want to pester her son about putting in a furnace even though winter's coming on. She keeps a miniature pony--and later a pygmy goat as well--in one bedroom. She has a deaf-blind dog she carries around. All this tossed together swamps the two deaths until the last part of the book where Shirley and her friend Norma do some serious investigating.

Charlie, the local deputy, is a friend of Shirley's and sneaks into the cop shop to search for info because nobody's telling him anything. On his own he's also working on a case of stolen goods. Sheriff Moss and Detective McGowan are supposed to be solving the murders, but they have no leads and are basically doing nothing but getting on each other's nerves. Police come off looking pretty bad in this story; if Shirley and Norma hadn't gotten serious, the cases would still be unsolved.

[P.S. Winn · Rating 5 out of 5]

First, you have to love the characters in this book. Especially Shirley Steele, who is an amazing person. Sadly, or maybe not so sadly, because she enjoys a mystery, dead bodies tend to show up around her. This is a well written mystery, with some fun characters and a twisted suspense readers can enjoy. This is the first novel I have read by this author, but I like the way she writes and tells a great no-nonsense tale.