Hi, everybody! My name is Astra, and I’m Mackenzie Almeida’s mom. My parents named me Edna, but after I got serious about pursuing a career as an astrological consultant, I’m sure you can understand why changing my name was so appealing. I mean, Edna?
I’m pretty sure Mac and her brother Derrick don’t give much credence to my views about the effects of planetary and constellational configurations on people’s lives, but they’re kind enough not to say so. My daughter, for example, is a double Virgo. That means she’s super logical, observant, and independent. We all know she’s a perfectionist, which trips up my girl from time to time, but I’m happy to say being a mom has lightened Mac’s tendency to be Ms. Neat Freak.
Joseph and I are always happy to help out with preschooler Ella and little Luca, now old enough to gum real food and crawl at high speeds toward danger. We’ve always played a big role in six-year-old Cokey’s life, too, and now Derrick and his wife also have a baby, albeit one who’s still an infant. Being a grandma is one of the best parts of my life in these older years, and I’m grateful to still have enough energy to hang out with and manage little ones.
In any event, Mac needed to give me an assist about something different in recent days. I tried a bit too hard to help out a young lady I met at our free grocery, the one we run out of the basement of my husband’s UU church here in Westham, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. But Zia Carven resisted my attempts to lend her a hand. I’m afraid she reminded me of myself during a vulnerable period of my own young adult life, and I grew upset with her resistance.
Well, after the poor thing was murdered, the police looked at me for the crime. Can you even imagine? I wouldn’t hurt a soul. It fell to Mac and her book group to weed through the suspects – who were several in number – and find the killer before I was stuffed in the clink.
Thank goodness it all came out right in the end, just in time to throw Ella, our little Pisces, a happy fourth birthday party.
MURDER AT THE TOY SOLDIER
Series: A Cozy Capers Book Group Mystery, Book 8
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release: August 2026
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link
It’s a cold, wet, February on Cape Cod, but a murder at the local toy store blows an especially icy wind through town—and through bike shop owner Mackenzie “Mac” Almeda’s sleuthing Cozy Capers Book Group.
Mac is extra busy these days as she and Tim do their best as working parents of a preschooler and a baby, not to mention Mac’s participation in the Cozy Capers book group. With Ella’s 4th birthday approaching, Mac uses her lunch break to shop for a gift at the Toy Soldier, which is run by June Fadiman.
Behind the counter is Zia Carven, a young woman Mac recognizes as a shopper at the Free Grocery food pantry Mac’s father sponsors. Zia finds Mac a kid-sized gardening toolkit Ella will love and offers to gift wrap it. In a rush, Mac plans to pick it up after work. But at 5:30, she finds Zia slumped over the counter, dead, dried blood on a toy rifle nearby. The first police officer to arrive is June’s son, August. Then June arrives and is upset to find the police won’t allow her inside.
Mac’s mother, Astra, confides that she’d been trying to help Zia, and now the police want to speak with her, which worries Mac. Then Mac discovers that Zia had been in town searching for her birth mother, which only multiplies the questions—and the suspects. Just one thing is certain: Mac and the book group will have to double down to find a killer who isn’t playing around . . .
About the author
Maddie Day writes the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, Cece Barton Mysteries, and the Dot and Amelia Mysteries. As Agatha-Award winning Edith Maxwell, she writes Agatha Award-winning historical mysteries and Agatha-nominated short crime fiction. She’s a member of MWA-NE, and a proud lifetime member of Sisters in Crime. Day/Maxwell lives north of Boston, where she writes, cooks, gardens, wastes time on Facebook, and delights in Grammy duties. Find her at her web site and at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen.