9 Cozy Mystery Series to Read for Mardi Gras

Welcome aboard, train wrecks.

It’s March. It’s Tuesday. It’s Mardi Gras. And I’m going to show you a few things.

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Keep your beads. I’m showing you some cozy mystery series to read to get you in the mood to watch the big parade. Not all of these take place in New Orleans but they are in Louisiana.

A B&B Spirits Mystery (3 book series)

by Pamela Kopfler 

Holly Davis, the lovely proprietor of a Louisiana bed and breakfast, believes in Southern hospitality, but she won’t welcome the ghost of her cheating husband…

Burl Davis died a little sooner than predicted, just as Holly was about to serve him with divorce papers for his adulterous affairs. Unfortunately, not before nearly bankrupting her beloved B&B, Holly Grove, a converted plantation in her family for generations. Holly would never wish for anyone to die, but three months later, she’s more relieved than sad.

Until Burl’s ghost shows up as an unwanted visitor. Her not-so-dearly departed needs Holly’s human cooperation to smash up the drug smuggling ring he was connected with before he can move on. She has some reservations, but agrees to help him provided he makes a show of haunting the B&B to attract tourists. But when Holly’s ex-boyfriend, Jack McCann, shows up in town and checks in, she has to decide if her B&B can accommodate the ghost of her husband as well as the very real physical presence of her old flame…

Cajun Country Mysteries (7 book series)

by Ellen Byron

Maggie Crozat, the Prodigal Daughter, has gone home to her family’s plantation-turned-bed-and-breakfast in Louisiana at the end of the summer. Elderly honeymooners, the Cajun Cuties, a mysterious visitor from Texas, a couple of hipster lovebirds, and a group of Georgia frat boys are among the Crozats’ guests for the local culinary festival. Maggie and the others become suspects in a murder when the elderly couple dies within minutes of each other, one of them from highly unusual circumstances.

Maggie must investigate to clear her name with the help of Bo Durand, the town’s gorgeous new detective, while still keeping the family company afloat. And the more she digs, the more she wonders if everyone is there for a vacation or if they have other plans. Plantation Shudders, Ellen Byron’s lovely cozy debut, is full of decades-old secrets and unexpected truths.

Frosted Love Cozy Mysteries (32 book series)

by Summer Prescott 

From Book 1: A little friendly competition is never a bad thing.
However, it is possible that it will kill them.
Melissa Gladstone, the proprietor of a cupcake business, is a hometown Southern girl with a nose for clues and a knack for delicious cupcakes.
Missy Gladstone’s hometown of LaChance, Louisiana is a sleepy southern burg where everyone knows everyone and where the residents have been watching Missy Gladstone’s rivalry with Darryl ‘The Donut Man’ Davis for years. Both local coffee shop owners compete intensely for the morning coffee crowd, and it was well known that the two rivals didn’t get along. What the nice folks of LaChance never expected was for one of them to be murdered. When The Donut Man is discovered dead at his shop, life in town becomes chaotic, and a whole lot of mayhem ensues.

Because Missy and Darryl have a history of feuding, she’s an apparent suspect for the crime. Missy and her devoted aide Ben are being questioned by Chas Beckett, LaChance’s new homicide detective, and it’s up to Missy to figure out who the killer is before the two of them end up in jail.

Missy has never considered herself an amateur sleuth, but she isn’t one to back down from a challenge, so she jumps right into her own murder investigation, despite the sexy homicide detective’s warnings. Will she be able to solve the case? Is she going to be the next victim?
In this fast-paced Cozy Mystery, you’ll find out!

Ghost-in-Law Mystery Romance (6 book series)

by Jana DeLeon 

From Book 1: Scientist Maryse Robicheaux thought her mother-in-death law’s had solved a lot of her difficulties. The woman was obnoxious, aggressive, and manipulative, and she used her great fortune to bulldoze Mudbug, Louisiana.

Death, unfortunately, has no effect on Helena.

DEA Agent Luc LeJeune is wondering what he’s gotten himself into with his undercover investigation of the seductive scientist, especially since it appears that someone wants her dead. It’s simpler to keep his secrets while protecting Maryse than it is to deny his attraction to the brainy beauty.

(Note: This book was first published in print in 2009 by Dorchester Publishing and is part of the author’s backlist.)

A Kitty Couture Mystery (4 book series)

by Julie Chase 

For fans of Rita Mae Brown and Miranda James, this first episode of a pet cozy mystery series will be the cat’s meow.

In the fabled New Orleans Garden District, where pets are treated as family and no amount of bling is too much, grandeur and splendor reign supreme. Lacy Marie Crocker’s dream of opening Furry Godmother, a pet store and organic treat bakery, comes true—until the glitter gun she uses to manufacture her Shih Tzu tutus turns into a murder weapon. Lacy is now the public’s worst enemy.

Lacy’s Furry Godmother investor wants out before his name is tainted by affiliation, so Detective Jack Oliver is pursuing her. To make matters worse, a wave of diamond heists linked to the murder case has citizens of New Orleans on edge. Lacy must take a stand, put her keen eyes to work, and figure out what really happened at her shop that night in order to save her dream. But will Lacy be able to track down the assassin cat burglar in time to show off her tail-raising creations on the catwalk?

A Missy DuBois Mystery (6 book series)

by Sandra Bretting

Missy DuBois, a hat designer, opened Crowning Glory on Louisiana’s Great River Road to serve the refined Southern wedding. But, bless her heart, who would have guessed that designing fashionable bridal veils would lead to murder?

Missy may indulge in the height of antebellum ambiance after being hired to make a veil for a socialite getting married at Morningside Plantation. However, when the bride is discovered dead in a women’s restroom, Missy the milliner becomes embroiled in a rather unfashionable murder. With a list of suspects as long as the Louisiana heat, including a gaggle of tearless bridesmaids and a family with no shortage of adversaries, it appears that someone at the home may have murdered the bride-to-be. Missy has plenty of Southern charm, but she’ll need more than good manners and a manicure to put a hat pin on this fatal affair…

A Piece Of Cake Mystery (6 book series)

by Jacklyn Brady 

Rita Lucero, a pastry chef from New Orleans, is on a mission to bake her way to the top. However, when she discovers her almost-ex-husband murdered with a chef’s knife in his back, she becomes the prime suspect. Now it’s up to her to track down the real killer before becoming the next victim.

A Scrapbooking Mystery (11 book series)

by Laura Childs 

Carmela Bertrand, the proprietor of a scrapbooking company in New Orleans, dazzles her customers with her beautiful scrapbook arrangements. But among her clients’ mementos, she discovers a tip regarding a murder…

Carmela’s scrapbooking shop, Memory Mine, is growing, and life is comfortable for her. When one of the city’s elite dies during Mardi Gras, the authorities point the finger at Carmela’s divorced husband. Carmela remembers how he ended their marriage, but she doesn’t think he’s cut out to be a killer. Carmela might be the only one who can identify the pattern and solve the case in time if Shamus is being framed…

Vintage Cookbook Mystery (1 book series)

by Ellen Byron

After her showboating actor husband dies in a dumb internet stunt, Ricki James, a twenty-eight-year-old widow, departs Los Angeles to start a new life in New Orleans. Ricki was born in the Big Easy and was adopted by the NICU nurse who looked after her when Ricki’s teen mother vanished from the hospital.

Ricki’s ambition comes true when she joins the eccentric crew of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, the magnificent former Garden District home of late bon vivant Genevieve “Vee” Charbonnet, the city’s famed restaurateur. Ricki is looking forward to converting her hobby of collecting vintage cookbooks into a career by opening Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware, the museum’s gift shop. Then she discovers the body of a cantankerous Bon Vee employee who was fired after being revealed as a book thief in a box of donated vintage cookbooks.

Ricki’s expertise in locating hidden vintage gems comes in helpful during investigations. When Ricki’s background as curator of a billionaire’s first edition collection comes back to bother her, both her business and Bon Vee could become deadstock.

Will Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware be a hit… or a disaster waiting to happen?

Have you read any of these? Let me know what you thought of it?

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