A Whale of a Murder: A Venus Bixby Mystery

Fun times until someone invites murder to town.

A Whale of a Murder is the first book in author Valerie Taylor’s new cozy series featuring Venus Bixby, the Song & Dance Lady. A charming coastal Massachusetts setting offers an array of quirky townspeople to meet in this series starter, including the lively and sassy titular main character.

Venus Bixby, the fun, feisty, and soon-to-be amateur sleuth of the series, is turning 50 as the story opens. When she literally stumbles over the body of Maggie McGee, who is rumored to be more than a former coworker of her current amour, Budd, Venus becomes the suspect numero uno with the local police.

I thought the story stood out from the usual cozy mystery in a couple of unique ways. For one, Venus show more and her friend Carole have an unusually competitive relationship, with a bit of underlying animosity rolling off Carole. I thought that situation was unique until the murder victim, with all her inner thoughts, was introduced. Secondly, there are a number of romantic liaisons being kept “under the covers” among the main and secondary characters.

The murder mystery presents some unique and intriguing circumstances, too, that really grabbed my attention. While it’s not unusual for the main character of a series to be pegged as the main ‘person of interest’ in a murder, creating their motivation to become an amateur sleuth to clear their name, this story has her suspecting some of her closest friends of the murder as well. With everyone suspecting each other and almost all having secrets to keep to themselves, there are plenty of angles and suspects to consider along the way to the clever final resolution.

With small-town vibes operating at maximum with friends suspecting friends, I recommend A WHALE OF A MURDER to cozy mystery readers, especially those who like a musically-themed story, a Massachusetts setting, store cats, and an ‘other than Christmas’ holiday tale. show less

A fun beach cozy for the upcoming Summer season, this first in a new mystery series started off a little slow and took a few chapters to start flowing easily, but you do get used to the writing style after a bit. I wasn't crazy about some of the friends but the MC is eclectic and the music and food sounded divine (there's a nice playlist of pretty good music and some delicious sweets at the end too).For cozy mystery readers or those in search of a lighthearted beach read.

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