This week’s column features Cozy Mysteries in our New Large Print collection.

We begin with Bailee Abbott’s second book in her Paint by Murder series titled Kill Them with Canvas. Chloe Abbington and her sister Izzie are enjoying running Paint with a View, their paint party business. Their aunt Constance—president of a local ladies’ society— has hooked them up with a Halloween painting party in their tranquil town of Whisper Cove, New York. The subject of their painting party will be a local ghostly legend—the Lady of Chautauqua Lake. Though their subject died a hundred years earlier, it is said she rises from the lake every October to haunt anyone out on All Hallow’s Eve. Chloe witnesses her aunt arguing with the Sisterhood’s director, Viola, about the fate of the local chapter. Unfortunately, Viola is found floating face down in the lake the next morning in a position eerily reminiscent of one of the paintings from the night before. The police find Aunt Constance’s purple hat near the crime scene, and she quickly becomes the prime suspect. Chloe and Izzie jump in to help their aunt. Can they find the killer before another body drops?

A Cup of Flour, a Pinch of Death is a culinary cozy by award nominated author Valerie Burns. Maddie Montgomery is a social media influencer who has just moved to a small Michigan town to run a bakery and take care of her huge English mastiff. Maddy’s social media savvy has also set up Baby Cakes Bakery to be a huge success. That success has attracted the attention of Maddy’s one-time—and fiancé stealing—nemesis, Brandy Denton. When Brandy blows into town like a tornado and disturbs the blog Maddy is currently filming, their argument goes viral. When Brandy’s body is found at Baby Cakes, Maddy goes from a viral star to a murder suspect. Maddy is still dealing with the murder when a stranger shows up and tells her that he was a friend of her great aunt, Octavia, and Maddy may be in danger. A second body washes up on the shore of the lake and it becomes clear that someone is killing to keep a secret—and it may have to do with her great aunt. Maddy rallies her aunt’s friends to do some digging and get to the root of these murders.

Jessica Ellicott’s latest is titled Murder at an English Seance. In post-World War I Britain, spiritualism is all the rage and that rings true in Walmsley Parva as well. A suspicious seance that ends with a murder throws American adventuress Beryl Helliwell and the prim and proper Brit Edwina Davenport back together to dig up some dirt on all parties involved. Edwina has secretly finished her novel and is sending it out to publishers while Beryl has been gifted an airplane for solving a case. Miss Dinsdale, a psychic, has begun holding seances in Walmsley Parva, and the vicar’s wife hires Beryl and Edwina to expose her as a fraud. Miss Dinsdale claims that her spirit guide is an Egyptian princess whose mummy resides in a sarcophagus in the room. Too bad the only body found inside is a villager who has been stabbed with a dagger. As they begin their investigation, Beryl finds that her plane has been sabotaged and wonders if there is a connection. These two sleuths will go round and round until they wheedle out the culprit.

The latest mystery by Lauren Elliott featuring bookstore owner Addie Greyborne is titled A Limited Edition Murder. Addie is a bit melancholic about her stay in West Yorkshire, England. She is far from home, her friends, and her beloved bookstore, Beyond the Page Books and Curios. But the engagement party of her dear friend, Tony, at Milton Manor promises to be a joyful occasion. The atmosphere turns dark, however, when Tony presents his fiance a special copy of Wuthering Heights as an engagement gift. The lord of the manor insists that the book is stolen from his library. While walking her dog on the moors, Addie practically trips over a body of a young woman. The police quickly hone in on Tony as their prime suspect, so naturally, Addie is determined to get to the bottom of what’s going on. She will definitely need to watch her back while walking this dark, treacherous path.

The eleventh Lighthouse Library mystery by Eva Gates is called The Stranger in the Library. A traveling show of impressionist art comes to Nags Head, North Carolina and Lucy and her staff at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library create an inspired educational display about art history. The morning after the display’s successful debut, the staff discovers a reproduction of a famous painting has gone missing. The picture is of no real value, so why steal it? The real, priceless painting is under lock and key at the arts show itself. Lucy notices unusual tension among the art show’s organizers when she attends the opening night. Then, the man slated to give the keynote address fails to show up and the body of a partygoer is found floating in the fishpond. Lucy’s friend is smitten with a handsome, charming art dealer named Tom Reilly who managed to slip away from the party early and cannot be located by the police. Who is this shadowy figure poised to break her friend’s heart? And are the theft of the painting, the missing speaker, and the dead body connected?

This column was submitted by Evangeline Cessna, Local History Librarian at the Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library.