Rating: 4.75🌈
I’m utterly charmed by the new murder mystery I just finished. A story along the lines of a cozy mystery with a touch of the mysterious or perhaps mystical, I also found a new wonderful author in Mr Mustachio is Falsely Accused (Mr. Mustachio Murders Book 1) by Dawn McKinnon.
Honestly, it was that cover! Then the description. But first that remarkable cover with the auburn Persian cat with the white mustache looking so smug and intelligent!
Then once I got into it, I was hooked. The prologue belongs to Mr Mustachio’s thoughts as he wanders through his nightly routine of checking in on his renters and those that have come to visit Chez Celine, his mansion that now houses artists and their shops. Turns out the wealthy woman who owned the huge house left everything to him, land, house, and lots of money.
McKinnon does a fascinating job of keeping Mr Mustachio’s thoughts less anthropomorphic, more in the realm of what a cat, an extraordinary one however, might think.
The second and primary POV belongs to ex police officer, Sam Jones, who’s just rented rooms in Chez Celine hoping to start his next career as a mystery writer and part time detective.
Once interviewed, inside Chez Celine and accepted as one of this strange group, the mysteries start piling up on Sam immediately. One happens to be in the form of Algernon, the strangely naive, mysterious, and very lovely man of indeterminate age that’s Mr Mustachio’s guardian. That’s just the beginning.
McKinnon’s narrative weaves a tale of multiple mysteries, several murders, a household of artists of different ages and backgrounds, some very strange and mysterious, the most interesting and unusual are those of Algernon and the cat, Mr Mustachio. Sam Jones is pretty special as the not so hard boiled detective narrator who’s falling for Algernon, the cat and Chez Celine.
I’m so thrilled to have found this new author and series. I immediately have two more books to discover, one that was recently published. Be still my heart.
If you’re a lover of murder mysteries, slow heat romance, cozy mysteries, mysterious characters, or even some strange elements or animals as main characters, well, this book and series has all of the above. And done right.
Plus it’s got those covers! Highly recommended.
Cover: Cate Ashwood
The Mr. Mustachio Murders:
✓ Mr. Mustachio Is Falsely Accused #1
â—¦ Mr. Mustachio Sings Like a Canary #2
â—¦ Mr. Mustachio Gets Collared #3
Buy Link:
Mr. Mustachio Is Falsely Accused (The Mr. Mustachio Murders)
Blurb:
What happens when a hard-boiled detective finds himself in a cozy mystery?
Sam Jones has left the force. Going forward, the only mysteries he’ll solve will be fictional ones as he pursues his dream of becoming an author. But he’s barely moved into Chez Celine, a former mansion repurposed as an artist collective, before two unfortunate discoveries demand his attention. One is the dead body of his new apartment’s previous occupant, found stuffed in a trunk. The other is an award-winning vase, found shattered on a storeroom floor.
The list of murder suspects is endless. Everyone hated Amelie. But when it comes to the broken vase, the perpetrator seems obvious. It must be Sam’s unlikely landlord—an unusually intelligent cat named Mr. Mustachio.
Sam has never made friends easily, but as he gets to know Mr. Mustachio’s human representative, Algernon, his feelings move beyond friendship. But Algernon seems to know more than an innocent man should. To find the true culprit, and perhaps true love, Sam must prove that both Algernon and Mr. Mustachio have been falsely accused.
Mr. Mustachio is Falsely Accused is book 1 in the Mr. Mustachio Murders.
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 