Dru’s Short Musing:
What a fun book featuring new amateur sleuth Meg, who’s put to the test when a man she overheard on a boat ride, ends of dead at her new employer’s dock.

Returning home to a new life awaits Meg with two jobs, one working in a bookstore and one working for an author where she can get some insights for the book she hopes to write. Who knew a murder would help as she seeks out clues to first clear her bestie and then to clear her family as well as her new employer.

The author did a great job in staging this fast-paced and well-written whodunit. The mystery was presented with all that I enjoy in a cozy — a solidly wicked plot, a pool of suspects and clues that floated to the top for Meg to discover. What I liked was when Meg found a clue, she immediately contacted her uncle who is the police chief, of course she talked it out with her childhood friends who in their youth were called the Mystery Crew. I also enjoyed meeting the characters from Natasha to Dalton to her mom, her aunt and the various others she encountered who all had pivotal roles in how well this drama was being told. It was nice watching this all play out as one by one the suspects dwindled until there was only one person left standing…the killer.

This is an excellent introduction and welcome addition to the cozy genre, and I can’t wait for the next book in this delightfully charming series.

Series Name: A Bainbridge Island Mystery | Book 1
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release: June 24, 2025
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link

Book Synopsis:
New York Times bestselling author Lynn Cahoon makes her hardcover debut with an irresistible new meta-mystery series about an amateur sleuth who doesn’t just solve crimes, she writes about how to do it . . .

TIP #1: WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU COUNTS AS WORK EXPERIENCE
Meg Gates could use a guidebook for life. Indeed, she’s faced some challenges. She dropped out of college to work for a tech startup that failed—and her fiancé just took her bridesmaid to Italy on what was supposed to be Meg’s honeymoon.

Now, at twenty-six, Meg has taken the ferry ride of shame from Seattle back to Bainbridge Island to live with her family. At least she has her rescue cocker spaniel, Watson, by her side. But it’s Meg who could use a rescue—and she’s hoping it will come in the form of a part-time gig doing research for a bestselling mystery writer.

TIP #2: WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW – OR WHAT YOU WANT TO KNOW
That’s when the lightbulb goes on: Meg will write her own guidebook—a manual on criminal investigation. But before she can impress her new boss with her pet project, the author’s manager is found dead on the rocks beneath the author’s Gothic mansion.

Now it’s time to put her guide to the test, as Meg sets out to clear her employer of suspicion and solve the crime. But there’s one important caveat she’ll have to add to her guide—

TIP #3: BEWARE OF UNKNOWN DANGERS

FTC Full Disclosure – I received a digital ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.