Murder Next Door Charlie Kingsley Mysteries Book #3
Cozy Mystery, Cozy Culinary Fiction, Humorous Fiction
Love-Based Publishing
April 19, 2022
Kindle
265
Amazon
Everyone knows vampires don’t exist.
So when Mildred Schmidt, one of Charlie’s customers, is convinced that her next-door neighbor’s house sitter is actually a vampire, Charlie of course has to step in to see what is really going on.
What she finds is … disturbing. The house sitter DOES have some peculiar habits—like digging holes in the backyard in the middle of the night.
Surely, they aren’t … graves.
But then Polly, a local teenager, goes missing.
Of course, teenagers DO run away from time to time.
Less explainable is the dead body that then appears in the “vampire’s” yard.
Luckily, Charlie is hot on the case, and not a moment too soon as she races to not only find Polly, but to discover the killer before the bodies start to pile up.
Meet Charlie. Better known as “Aunt Charlie” from the award-winning Secrets of Redemption series. She's back, making teas and solving cases in this funny, twisty, cozy mystery series set in the 1990s in Redemption, Wisconsin.
While this book can be read as a standalone, you may find it more enjoyable to read them in order.
Reviewed by Linda Tonis
Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team
A call from one of Charlie’s tea customers, Mildred Schmidt will get Charlie smack dab in the middle of a mystery. Mildred insists her neighbor Jonas is missing and a strange man is living in his house going out only at night and digging holes. Of course, to Mildred, the new neighbor is a vampire and when she and Charlie go knocking on his door they are face to face with a man as white as a ghost, further convincing Mildred that he is a vampire.
If you have read the previous books in this series then you know that Charlie makes teas and tinctures out of her home, a home that is believed to be haunted. In addition to her teas and tinctures Charlie seems to have the ability to both get involved in crimes and murders and solving them. She tries to convince Mildred to keep her thoughts to herself but that doesn’t work because she verbalizes everything in the local diner.
According to Jonas’ house sitter, Drake he suffers from a disease which makes going into the sun dangerous but once the idea of him being a vampire that is all people will believe. Then a dead body is found on Jonas’ lawn and that put a target on Drake’s back and set people to march to his home just like in the old vampire movies. Poor Drake is now labeled a vampire and a murderer but it will just get worse when a young girl disappears and he once again is considered the guilty party.
Charlie can’t help herself and gets involved. Where is the girl, is it a case of Redemption the town taking her and if so, will it return her as it did with others. Redemption is far from your normal town; it is a town filled with superstitions and a strong belief that when the town wants you to stay you can’t leave and when it doesn’t want you you are gone.
A murder, a missing girl, a missing neighbor and a new house sitter who everyone believes is a vampire. Then a new psychic moves in and Charlie doesn’t trust her and is convinced she is involved in the girl’s disappearance. Charlie once again is a success when it comes to solving all the mysteries in this book and they were quite a surprise.
This book kept me interested from beginning to end and I highly recommend it.
COZY MYSTERY
COZY MYSTERY – SERIES