Anone Mouse Jr / Sandbox

Anon e Mouse Jr.'s sandbox page contains drafts for the following pages:

Note: Jaine Austen Mysteries, Moongobble and Me, The Enchanted Files, Goblins in the Castle, Oddly Enough and Universal Monsters were all previously assembled on this page.

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Miscellaneous Cozy Mystery series (23):

Bewitching Mysteries; by Madelyn Alt (series ended/on hold)

Literature.Bewitching Mysteries (by Madelyn Alt)
- Anon's note: I own all seven.

Bewitching Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Madelyn Alt. The series features Maggie O'Neill, a woman from Stony Creek, Indiana, who undergoes a sudden change of jobs one day and starts working for antique shop owner Felicity "Liss" Dow. Early on, she learns her new boss is a real, practicing witch who supplies to the local magic community, and that she herself has magical potential.

The series consists of:

#01: The Trouble With Magic (2006)
#02: A Charmed Death (2006)
#03: Hex Marks the Spot (2007)
#04: No Rest for the Wiccan (2008)
#05: Where There's a Witch (2009)
#06: A Witch in Time (2010)
#07: Home for a Spell (2011)

This series provides examples of:

The Alleged Car: Maggie owns a 1972 Volkswagen Bug described as "temperamental" at best, which she calls Christine (after the Stephen King novel). Despite the difficulties with it though, she actually likes the car.
The Empath: Maggie's magic takes the form of this, making her more sensitive to the feelings of others and to emotional energies in general.
Not What It Looks Like: Sounds like, in this case. In book 6, Maggie overhears two male voices while she's stuck in a hospital elevator, who sound like they're plotting something horrible. It turns out they were planning the one man's proposal to his girlfriend, Maggie's friend Steff.

Trivia:

Development Hell: The series had seven books released from 2006 to 2011. An eighth book, In Charm's Way, was announced and given a pre-release date for 2012, but it was later delisted. On top of that, Alt hasn't been heard from since sometime in 2012, leaving the series' fate up in the air.

Bibliophile Mysteries; by Kate Carlisle (series ongoing)

Literature.Bibliophile Mysteries (by Kate Carlisle)
- Anon's note: I own books 1-15 (including the e-book).

Bibliophile Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Kate Carlisle. The series features San Francisco-based book restoration expert Brooklyn Wainwright, who begins solving murders on a part-time basis after her mentor is murdered and she meets British security officer Derek Stone, who considers her the top suspect for discovering the body.

The series consists of:

#01: Homicide in Hardcover (2009)
#02: If Books Could Kill (2010)
#03: The Lies that Bind (2010)
#04: Murder Under Cover (2011)
#04.5: "Pages of Sin" (2012; e-book)
#05: One Book in the Grave (2012)
#06: Peril in Paperback (2012)
#07: A Cookbook Conspiracy (2013)
#08: The Book Stops Here (2014)
#09: Ripped from the Pages (2015)
#10: Books of a Feather (2016)
#11: Once Upon a Spine (2017)
#12: Buried in Books (2018)
#13: The Book Supremacy (2019)
#14: The Grim Reader (2020)
#15: Little Black Book (2021)
#16: The Paper Caper (2022)
#17: The Twelve Books of Christmas (2023)

This series provides examples of:

The Corpse Stops Here: In book 1, main character and book-restoration expert Brooklyn Wainwright discovers her mortally wounded mentor Abraham Karastovsky and is forced to watch as he dies in her arms. Because of this, she immediately becomes the chief suspect in the eyes of Derek Stone, the security officer on duty at the event they were both attending. She's exonerated soon enough, but is rather ticked at being considered as a murderer based on such flimsy evidence.

Black Cat Bookshop Mysteries; by Ali Brandon (series ended/on hold)

Literature.Black Cat Bookshop Mysteries (by Ali Brandon)
- Anon's note: As of 12/03/22, I own the complete series.

Black Cat Bookshop Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Diane A. S. Stuckart writing as Ali Brandon. The series features Darla Pettistone, originally from Texas, who's moved to Brooklyn, New York after unexpectedly inheriting the "Pettistone's Fine Books" bookstore from her now deceased Great-Aunt Dee, along with the store's mascot — Hamlet, an oversize black cat.

The series consists of:

#1: Double Booked for Death (2011)
#2: A Novel Way To Die (2012)
#3: Words with Fiends (2013)
#4: Literally Murder (2014)
#5: Plot Boiler (2015)
#6: Twice Told Tail (2016)

This series provides examples of:

Bookmobile Cat Mysteries; by Laurie Cass (series ongoing)

Literature.Bookmobile Cat Mysteries (by Laurie Cass)
- Anon's note: I own books 2-9; looking for 1 (read 1-4, and possibly 5, in the past).

Bookmobile Cat Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Laura Alden writing as Laurie Cass. The series features Minnie Hamilton, who's recently moved to Chilson, Michigan and become the town's new assistant librarian. There, she becomes the owner of a stray cat named Eddie and persuades the library to start operating a bookmobile, to bring books to people who lived in towns without libraries or who couldn't get out to libraries. In the process of driving it around, with Eddie at her side, she finds herself drawn into mysteries.

The series consists of:

#01: Lending A Paw (2013)
#02: Tailing a Tabby (2014)
#03: Borrowed Crime (2015)
#04: Pouncing On Murder (2015)
#05: Cat With a Clue (2016)
#06: Wrong Side of the Paw (2017)
#07: Booking the Crook (2019)
#08: Gone with the Whisker (2020)
#09: Checking Out Crime (2021)
#10: The Crime that Binds (2022)
#11: A Troubling Tail (2023)
#12: No Paw to Stand On (announced for August 2024)

This series provides examples of:

Cat Rescue Mysteries; by T. C. LoTempio (series ended/on hold)

Literature.Cat Rescue Mysteries (by T. C. LoTempio)
- Anon's note: I own none, but I know the author's work and like it.

Cat Rescue Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Toni LoTempio writing as T. C. LoTempio. The series features Sydney McCall, who has just left an advertising job in New York and returns to Deer Park, North Carolina to help her sister Kat run the local animal shelter. There, with the aid of an orange tabby cat named Toby, she finds herself solving mysteries. It was discontinued by its original publisher after two volumes, but the author intends to find a new one.

The series consists of:

#1: Purr M For Murder (2017)
#2: Death By a Whisker (2017)

This series provides examples of:

Cats and Curios Mysteries; by Rebecca M. Hale (series ended/on hold)

Literature.Cats And Curios Mysteries (by Rebecca M. Hale)
- Anon's note: I own all six.

Cats and Curios Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Rebecca M. Hale. The series features accountant Rebecca Hale, who unexpectedly inherits her uncle's antique shop in San Francisco when he dies. Along with her cats Rupert and Isabella, she stumbles across mysteries as she explores her uncle's past and the investigations he and his own friends had been conducting.

The series consists of:

#1: How to Wash a Cat (2008)
#2: Nine Lives Last Forever (2010)
#3: How to Moon a Cat (2011)
#4: How to Tail a Cat (2012)
#5: How to Paint a Cat (2014)
#6: How to Catch a Cat (2015)

This series provides examples of:

Multi-Part Episode: Books 5 and 6 are essentially this, as book 5 revolves around exposing a killer and book 6 revolves around tracking down that same killer and trying to keep them from killing again.

Dead-End Job Mysteries; by Elaine Viets (series ended/on hold)

Literature.Dead End Job Mysteries (by Elaine Viets)
- Anon's note: I own 1-9, 11 and 12.5-15 (looking to fill in the gaps — 10 and 12 — before I read these last four).

Dead-End Job Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Elaine Viets. The series features Helen Hawthorne, formerly an executive who is now living off the grid and working a string of dead-end jobs in order to make ends meet, all while stumbling upon murders and trying to stay out of the spotlight, all so her deadbeat ex-husband and the courts that sided in his favor during their divorce can't track her down. After book 9, her life takes a turn for the better, with a new husband and a full-time career as a private detective, but she still winds up having to go undercover at other jobs to solve her cases.

The series consists of:

#01: Shop Till You Drop (2003)
#02: Murder Between the Covers (2003)
#03: Dying to Call You (2004)
#04: Just Murdered (2005)
#05: Murder Unleashed (2006)
#06: Murder with Reservations (2007)
#07: Clubbed to Death (2008)
#08: Killer Cuts (2009)
#09: Half-Price Homicide (2010)
#10: Pumped for Murder (2011)
#11: Final Sail (2012)
#12: Board Stiff (2013)
#12.5: "Killer Blonde" (2005)^note
#13: Catnapped! (2014)
#14: Checked Out (2015)
#15: The Art of Murder (2016)

This series provides examples of:

The Alleged Car: While on the run, Helen Hawthorne traded her Lexus for one of these, which got her to Fort Lauderdale in Florida and promptly died, spending the next two years in a parking lot, just leaking oil and other stuff where it sat. When she finally gets it fixed enough to be barely functional in book 7, she calls it the Toad and winces every time it lets out a cloud of smoke and oil while she's driving, and she dreads it breaking down again. At the end of the book, having quit her latest job, she finally sells it to a mechanic who plans to use it for parts — and the money she gets is barely enough to pay the last set of repair bills on it.
Divorce Assets Conflict:
- Protagonist Helen Hawthorne is avoiding one of these with her current lifestyle for the first nine books. Thanks to the courts siding with her deadbeat and cheating husband Robbie during their divorce proceedings (and her own lawyer doing nothing in her defense), she legally owes him half of every paycheck she gets from then on, and has been forced to effectively live off the grid — no bank account, no phone, no permanent address — and work a string of dead-end jobs, paid only in cash with no benefits, in order to avoid him getting so much as a penny from her. Even then, her best efforts aren't enough to keep him from eventually finding her and demanding money. This ceases to be a problem in book 9 after it turns out the judge has since been arrested for taking bribes, including one from Rob to rule in his favor; Helen is able to get a new divorce settlement as a result and no longer owes Rob anything, though she still possibly owes taxes on what she's earned since the divorce. To top it off, Rob gets killed in the same book before he can try to contest things.
- In book 5, Helen's working at a pet boutique where one of the customers, Willoughby Barclay, drops off her labradoodle Barkley to be groomed. Her husband Francis later comes to pick up the animal, and it's only afterward that Helen finds out he and his wife are in the middle of a bitter divorce and it's the wife who has custody of their house and the dog, who's a mascot for the Davis Family Dollar department stores; Francis effectively kidnapped the animal so Barkley would lose her job and Willoughby would lose the income it brought in as a result. Before the book is out, Willoughby has been murdered, Francis has been arrested for doing it, and Barkley has lost her job because it came out that Willoughby was having an affair with another woman before her death. With her owners dead or in jail, the animal gets a happy ending when she's given to Francis's housekeeper, who'd taken care of Barkley for Francis after the kidnapping and treats her as a beloved pet rather than a source of income.
The Fundamentalist: Helen's ultra-religious mother Dolores, who keeps trying to force her brand of belief on her daughter, including insisting that despite everything Helen went through to make it legal, the church doesn't recognize Helen's divorce and so she should come back to her first husband; she is so convinced in her beliefs that she barges in on Helen's wedding in book 8 to stop it, saying she'd rather see Helen dead than married to anyone other than Rob.
Incriminating Indifference: In the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue of the first book, this is what results in a "Guilty" verdict for the killer (along with all the other physical evidence against them) — they showed no emotion during the trial.
Kangaroo Court: Helen's divorce trial was one. Her deadbeat husband Rob had already bribed the judge and her own lawyer refused to stand up for her, resulting in the judge awarding Rob half her future income; this prompted Helen to go on the run to avoid paying Rob a cent. Justice is eventually served in book 9 when the judge, who'd been found out six months after the divorce, confesses to accepting bribe money from Rob, and a new judge gets Helen a settlement in her favor.
Mysterious Note: In book 8, Helen starts getting anonymous threatening letters in the mail, which she figures are related to her current murder investigation. It turns out to be her ultra-religious mother trying to stop her upcoming wedding, since she doesn't believe in divorce and therefore considers Helen to be still married to her first husband.
New Job as the Plot Demands: Helen Hawthorne has a different job in each book of the series. In books 1-3, she has to find new work in the end because the place she'd been at closed down. In books 4-8, a variety of reasons lead to her choosing to go (including bad events at the ends of books 5 and 8; she was unwilling to return to those jobs, since she'd been so happy there before and now they were tainted after witnessing a man kill himself and seeing her mother have a heart attack at her aborted wedding, respectively). In book 9, she finally gets to remarry and, with her new husband, starts a detective business; in books 10-15, she goes undercover at other businesses to investigate things for their current case.
Only Bad Guys Call Their Lawyers: More than once in the series, Helen or a friend or coworker of hers wants to call their lawyer (and they do), and the police immediately claim this as reason to be suspicious of them. Book 7 has a very specific lawyer show up to help Helen (who's been accused of murdering her ex-husband Rob after he faked his own murder to get away from his new "wife", who'd sent the lawyer in question), and the cops make it clear that they consider this particular lawyer arriving to be proof positive of Helen's guilt, due to his reputation for defending the obviously guilty.
Parental Marriage Veto: Attempted by Helen Hawthorne's mother Dolores. After Helen divorces her deadbeat husband Robbie pre-series and goes on the run, Dolores keeps trying to get her to go back to him — due to her religious views, she believes divorce isn't recognized by the church and that Helen will burn in Hell if she ever remarries. When Helen is finally getting remarried in book 8, Dolores finds out and is so opposed to it that she's arranged for Helen to get threatening letters warning what will happen if she goes through with it, and finally takes a bus all the way from St. Louis to southern Florida, where she barges in to stop the wedding, declaring that she'd rather see Helen dead than with a man other than Robbie. She then suffers a heart attack and brain bleed during her rant and is essentially comatose afterward, so she has to be put in a home for the rest of her life, dying in book 9. Her death and Helen getting a new divorce settlement allow the wedding to finally go off by the end of the book.
Starting a New Life: Protagonist Helen Hawthorne is forced to do this in order to avoid making the court-ordered payments (half of every paycheck) to her deadbeat ex-husband Rob, living off the grid in South Florida and working a string of dead-end jobs with under-the-counter paychecks (cash only). He eventually manages to track her down and demand "his share" of her money anyway. She never does pay out, since she gets a new divorce settlement in her own favor in book 9, and Rob ends up dead soon afterward.
The Stoner: During the first two books, one of Helen's neighbors at the apartment complex is Phil, a man she's never seen except for a perpetual cloud of weed smoke coming out of his apartment (and a brief glimpse of his "Clapton is God" t-shirt when he pulled her out of her burning apartment in book 1), to the point where she's nicknamed him "Phil the invisible pothead". In book 2, she also finds drug paraphernalia in his apartment when she and an exterminator go in to make sure everything's been removed before the apartments are gassed for termites. Then Book 3 subverts it in a big way when Helen finally meets him in person and finds out that the stoner persona is all an act — he's really a private investigator and consultant with the government, and is working undercover in order to solve a major money laundering case (which she winds up helping him with).
"Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The first book ends in this, covering both the main protagonists and the assorted side characters. Later books downplay it, but most of the characters still get explanations about what happened to them afterward.
Whole Episode Flashback: The short story ''Killer Blonde" is this, where Helen's landlady Margery Flax tells her the story of how more than thirty years ago, one blonde murdered another blonde and got away with it.

Dream Club Mysteries; by Mary Kennedy (series ended/on hold)

Literature.Dream Club Mysteries (by Mary Kennedy)
- Anon's note: I own 1-2 and read 3 a few years back.

Dream Club Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Mary Kennedy. The series features business consultant Taylor Blake, who has gone to Georgia to help her sister Ali with her new candy shop, and unwittingly becomes involved in both mystery and her sister's Dream Interpretation Club.

The series consists of:

#1: Nightmares Can Be Murder (2014)
#2: Dream a Little Scream (2015)
#3: A Premonition of Murder (2016)

This series provides examples of:

Fixer-Upper Mysteries; by Kate Carlisle (series ongoing)

Literature.Fixer Upper Mysteries (by Kate Carlisle)
- Anon's note: I own 1-10; read #1 only as of this writing.

Fixer-Upper Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Kate Carlisle. The series features Shannon Hammer, a home renovation and repair contractor in Seaside Town, Northern California.

The series consists of:

#01: A High-End Finish (2014)
#02: This Old Homicide (2015)
#03: Crowned and Moldering (2015)
#04: Deck the Hallways (2016)
#05: Eaves of Destruction (2017)
#06: A Wrench in the Works (2018)
#07: Shot Through the Hearth (2019)
#08: Premeditated Mortar (2020)
#09: Absence of Mallets (2021)
#10: Dressed to Drill (2023)
#11: The Knife Before Christmas (announced for October 2024)

This series provides examples of:

Haunted Home Renovation Mysteries; by Juliet Blackwell (series ended/on hold)

Literature.Haunted Home Renovation Mysteries (by Juliet Blackwell)
- Anon's note: I own all eight (including the e-book).

Haunted Home Renovation Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Juliet Blackwell. The series features Melanie "Mel" Turner, who specializes in remodeling historic houses in the San Francisco Bay Area. But one day, her life takes a turn for the unexpected when a coworker dies on the site of one of her remodeling projects and his ghost asks her to solve his murder.

The series consists of:

#01: If Walls Could Talk (2010)
#02: Dead Bolt (2011)
#03: Murder on the House (2012)
#04: Home for the Haunting (2013)
#04.5: "A Haunting is Brewing" (2014)^note
#05: Keeper of the Castle (2014)
#06: Give Up the Ghost (2015)
#07: A Ghostly Light (2017)
#08: The Last Curtain Call (2020)

This series provides examples of:

Canon Welding: The novella "A Haunting is Brewing" establishes that the series takes place in the same world as the author's Witchcraft Mysteries series. Book #8 later references the events of the novella, with Lily Ivory once again playing a part in the story and helping Mel figure out the motive of the ghost in her attic.
Cruel and Unusual Death: In book 1, Kenneth Kostow is murdered by being shot with a nail gun and having his hand cut off with a power saw. Yowch.
A Dog Named "Dog": Late in book 1, Mel gets rescued by a dog, whom she takes home. She starts just calling him "Dog", thinking he's just a temporary housemate, but he winds up becoming permanent. Her father winds up renaming him "Doug" a few books later, but hardly anyone can remember this, starting to say one name and switching to another midway through, and Mel ends up sticking with just calling him Dog to avoid the confusion.

Key West Food Critic Mysteries; by Lucy Burdette (series ongoing)

Literature.Key West Food Critic Mysteries (by Lucy Burdette)
- Anon's note: I own 1-5, and 7 (need to get 6 before reading it).

Key West Food Critic Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Roberta Isleib writing as Lucy Burdette. The series features Hayley Snow, who's moved from New Jersey to Key West in order to work as a food critic for the Key Zest magazine, only to find herself stumbling onto mysteries.

The series consists of:

#01: An Appetite for Murder (2012)
#02: Death in Four Courses (2012)
#03: Topped Chef (2013)
#04: Murder with Ganache (2014)
#05: Death with All the Trimmings (2014)
#06: Fatal Reservations (2015)
#07: Killer Takeout (2016)
#08: Death on the Menu (2018)
#09: A Deadly Feast (2019)
#10: The Key Lime Crime (2020)
#11: A Scone of Contention (2021)
#12: A Dish to Die For (2022)
#13: A Clue in the Crumbs (2023)
#14: A Poisonous Palate (announced for August 2024)

This series provides examples of:

I Have No Son!: Jonah Barrows, a restaurant critic and the initial murder victim of book 2, is out and proud. As explained late in the book, however, his parents tried to force him to hide it, ultimately and effectively disowning him when he refused. Later, when he wrote a tell-all book about his life (being open about his sexuality and everything else in his life), they tried to sue he and his publisher for libel.

Laura Fleming Mysteries; by Toni Kelner (series ended/on hold)

Literature.Laura Fleming Mysteries (by Toni Kelner)
- Anon's note: I own 1-2.

Laura Fleming Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Toni Kelner, focused on Laura "Laurie Ann" Fleming and her husband Richard. Having lived in Byerly, North Carolina before moving to Boston, Laura periodically returns home to visit family, only to stumble upon murder mysteries and, with her husband and family by her side, work to solve them.

The series consists of:

#1: Down Home Murder (1993)
#2: Dead Ringer (1994)
#3: Trouble Looking for a Place to Happen (1995)
#4: Country Comes to Town (1996)
#5: Tight as a Tick (1998)
#6: Death of a Damn Yankee (1999)
#7: Mad as the Dickens (2001)
#8: Wed and Buried (2003)
#9: Crooked as a Dog's Hind Leg (2015; anthology)

This series provides examples of:

Passed-Over Inheritance: The series features a reversal in the very first book. Reverend Glass, who runs the church next door to Ellis "Paw" Burnette's house, has been after him to leave his house to the church so they can expand. He's most dismayed to find that Paw left it to his only surviving sister Maggie (and asked her to leave it to Laura, his granddaughter, in Maggie's own will), due to the Burnettes having long since sworn to keep the house and what was left of their land in the family after having had to sell off a lot of the property during the Depression.

Lighthouse Library Mysteries; by Vicki Delany as Eva Gates (series ongoing)

Literature.Lighthouse Library Mysteries (by Eva Gates)
- Anon's note: I own 1-5.

Lighthouse Library Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Vicki Delany writing as Eva Gates. The series features librarian Lucy Richardson, who has recently moved to the outer banks of North Carolina, where she works in the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library — a library built into a lighthouse. There, she stumbles across mysteries.

The series consists of:

#01: By Book Or By Crook (2015)
#02: Booked for Trouble (2015)
#03: Reading Up a Storm (2016)
#04: The Spook in the Stacks (2018)
#05: Something Read, Something Dead (2019)
#06: Read and Buried (2019)
#07: A Death Long Overdue (2020)
#08: Deadly Ever After (2021)
#09: Death by Beach Read (2022)
#10: Death Knells and Wedding Bells (2023)
#11: The Stranger in the Library (announced for June 2024)

This series provides examples of:

Inheritance Murder: The culprit's motive in book 3.

Magical Cats Mysteries; by Darlene Ryan as Sofie Kelly (series ongoing)

Literature.Magical Cats Mysteries (by Sofie Kelly)
- Anon's note: I own 1-11, including the e-book.

Magical Cats Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Darlene Ryan writing as Sofie Kelly. The series features librarian Kathleen Paulson, who has recently moved to Mayville Heights, Minnesota, to supervise the renovations at the local library. While there, she winds up adopting Owen and Hercules, a pair of feral kittens she found at the neglected Wisteria Hill estate, and whom have unusual talents that prove to come in handy when Kathleen stumbles onto mysteries.

The series consists of:

#01: Curiosity Thrilled the Cat (2011)
#02: Sleight of Paw (2011)
#03: Copycat Killing (2012)
#04: Cat Trick (2013)
#05: Final Catcall (2013)
#06: A Midwinter's Tail (2014)
#07: Faux Paw (2015)
#08: Paws and Effect (2016)
#08.5: "The Cat Burglar" (2016)^note
#09: A Tale of Two Kitties (2017)
#10: The Cats Came Back (2018)
#11: A Night's Tail (2019)
#12: A Case of Cat and Mouse (2020)
#13: Hooked on a Feline (2021)
#14: Whiskers and Lies (2022)
#15: Paws to Remember (2023)
#16: Furever After (announced for September 2024)

This series provides examples of:

By-the-Book Cop: Main character Kathleen Paulson's semi-love interest is Marcus Gordon, a cop of this type who investigates most (if not all) of the major crimes in Mayville Heights, Minnesota, and is adamant about sticking to the facts and physical proof rather than gut instinct like Kathleen. And no matter how helpful she and her discoveries are, he keeps telling her to just keep away from whatever case he's working on and not to go snooping around (advice that she continually ignores, despite her own best efforts, seeing as she tends to be a Mystery Magnet and the evidence just keeps coming her way). This puts a major strain on their relationship, such as it is. He mellows out considerably by the end of book 5 (Final Catcall), when they become an official couple, and is more open with her in books 6 (A Midwinter's Tail) and beyond.
Cats Hate Water: Hercules, one of Kathleen Paulson's two cats, really hates getting his paws wet. His brother Owen isn't bothered as much, and when the two are arguing, has been known to dump out Hercules' water dish in such a way that the puddle blocks Hercules from getting to his food dish. In book 8 (Paws and Effect), when Hercules willingly goes out in the rain at one point, Kathleen's friends realize it's a sure sign that something's wrong and come looking for her, just in time to help she and another woman as they're escaping from the cistern that the book's villain had trapped them in.
Clear My Name: Kathleen has to prove herself innocent of murder in book 1 (Curiosity Thrilled the Cat) when Gregor Easton turns up dead and Kathleen is the prime suspect due to some disagreements she had with him.
High on Catnip: Kathleen's friend and neighbor Rebecca regularly makes and provides her with handmade cloth chickens stuffed with catnip and dubbed "Fred the Funky Chicken". Of Kathleen's two cats, Owen regularly gets stoned from chewing on Fred. His brother Hercules, on the other hand, doesn't see the attraction and views the toys with disdain.
Intangibility: This is Hercules's special ability, letting him phase through matter. He typically uses it to get through any door that's between himself and whatever he wants to get to.
Invisibility: This is Owen's special ability, letting him become unseen to the naked eye.
Mystery Magnet: Kathleen. No matter how hard she tries to stay away from whatever cases are happening in town, the evidence just keeps coming her way, so she does what she feels is the right thing and gives it to the police, regardless of how much they don't want her help.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Hercules, one of Kathleen Paulson's two cats, is well known for his hatred of getting his paws wet. Late in book 8, his willingness to go out in the rain tips off Kathleen's friends that something's seriously wrong.
Rebuff the Amateur: No matter how helpful Kathleen and her discoveries are, Marcus Gordon keeps telling her to just keep away from whatever case he's working on and not to go snooping around. Being a Mystery Magnet who just keeps attracting evidence, she's unable to do so.
Same Face, Different Name: While the books are published under the name Sofie Kelly, the author also publishes nonfiction and young adult books under her real name of Darlene Ryan, and another Cozy Mystery series, Second Chance Cat Mysteries, under the name Sofie Ryan.
Who Murdered the Asshole: In book 3 (Copycat Killing), Kathleen accidentally discovers the skeletonized body of Tom Karlsson, the biological father of her friend Roma (Tom had disappeared when Roma was just a child). When speaking to Roma's mother Pearl about it later, asking who would want to kill him, Pearl admits she knows who: "Pretty much anyone who knew him." Tom, it turns out, had worked for the town bootlegger, cheated at cards, and was abusive to his wife.

YMMV:

Less Disturbing in Context: Book 2 (Sleight of Paw) starts with Kathleen and her friends Maggie and Roma trying to get a body into the back of an SUV, and they start talking about what they can do to make him fit inside, including taking off his legs... then, at the end of the page, Kathleen says "No, my legs don't detach, but I'm a human being and Eddie's a mannequin." Up until that line, there's nothing suggesting the "body" was anything other than a corpse.

Nick & Nora Mysteries; by T. C. LoTempio (series ongoing)

Literature.Nick And Nora Mysteries (by T. C. LoTempio)
- Anon's note: I own 1-3.

Nick & Nora Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Toni LoTempio writing as T. C. LoTempio. The series features Nora Charles, an investigative journalist in Chicago, who's moved back to her small home town in California to run her late mother's sandwich shop, but finds herself again involved in mysteries after meeting Nick, a cat who belonged to a now-missing and possibly dead private investigator.

The series consists of:

#1: Meow if it's Murder (2014)
#2: Claws For Alarm (2015)
#3: Of Crime and Catnip (2016)
#4: Hiss H for Homicide (2021)
#5: Murder Faux Paws (2022)
#6: A Purr Before Dying (2023)

This series provides examples of:

Adoptive Name Change: In book 1, Nora is "adopted" by a black-and-white cat, whom she starts calling Nick (after Nick Charles). After tracking down the identity of his original owner, a private investigator named Nick Atkins, she learns that the cat's original name is Sherlock (after Sherlock Holmes), but decides to keep calling him Nick.
Faking the Dead: Book 1 revolves in part around the fact that Nick Atkins, the cat Nick's original owner, has disappeared and is believed dead. After much speculation, the last chapters of book 3 confirm that he faked his death so he could go undercover and work on an important case overseas.
Never Heard That One Before: Oliver Jebidiah Sampson, a private detective, is a supporting character. He's quite annoyed when people mention that together, his first two initials and last name sound like "O. J. Simpson", complaining that he's heard all the jokes since the trial in 1995 and that this is why he doesn't like to give out his middle name.

Trivia:

Sequel Gap: There was a five-year delay between books 3 and 4, due to the original publisher declining to order more of the series and LoTempio having to find a new publisher as a result.

Novel Idea Mysteries; by three authors as Lucy Arlington (series ended/on hold)

Literature.Novel Idea Mysteries (by Lucy Arlington)
- Anon's note: I own all 5 (and have troped 3-5).

Novel Idea Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Jennifer Stanley and Sylvia May (for books 1-3) and Susan Furlong (for books 4-5) writing as Lucy Arlington. The series features Lila Wilkins, a middle-aged mother and features journalist in North Carolina, who loses her job when her employers are forced to downsize and finds a new one as an intern at the Novel Ideas literary agency. She soon finds herself stumbling across dead bodies and must solve the crimes.

It has been effectively discontinued since book 5, as the publisher has yet to request any further volumes.

The series consists of:

#1: Buried in a Book (2012)
#2: Every Trick in the Book (2013)
#3: Books, Cooks, and Crooks (2014)
#4: Played by the Book (2015)
#5: Off the Books (2016)

This series provides examples of:

Book 1, chapters 1-7 (to be expanded and integrated into the rest of the article when I'm in the mood):

Abomination Accusation Attack: In book 1 (Buried in a Book), Lila learns that the recently-deceased Marlette, a supposed vagrant, has often hung around children's playgrounds just watching the kids play. Flora Meriweather, who represents children's books at the agency, has reported him to the cops and tried to rile up local parents for it, accusing him of being a pedophile; it's not revealed until after his death that he's actually ().
Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: In book 1 (Buried in a Book), Lila gets a call from the cops informing her that some of her high school-age son's friends had gotten drunk, inspiring them to set up an obstacle course on a high school football field and then drive through it at breakneck speeds. Subverted with Trey (since he had not indulged), but his friends' drunkenness and peer pressure still caused him to take his own turn at it and crash the car — Lila's red Honda Civic — into a metal support and caused the bleachers to collapse on it (fortunately, he was already out of it by the time of the collapse, and nobody was seriously hurt).
Cassandra Truth: In book 1 (Buried in a Book), Lila's mother Althea warns her to get out of her new job while she can, because she did a Tarot reading and saw the Death card in Lila's "Future" spot. Lila, knowing full well that Death doesn't mean literal death in Tarot (in the Future position, it simply signifies major changes in a person's life), isn't buying it, even when Althea again claims that Death is coming for someone at the agency. It turns out she was right though, as one of the firm's clients ends up dead.
Collector of the Strange: Book 1 (Buried in a Book) shows Lila's mother Althea to be one of these — she brings home anything she thinks looks interesting and uses it to decorate her house. Such decorations include a light-up "EXIT" sign and a working traffic signal.
Dumpster Dive: In book 1 (Buried in a Book), Lila has to try and get into a dumpster to retrieve a batch of flowers with a query letter that the recently deceased Marlette had brought in, and which the owner had ordered thrown out. She ends up falling in, to her chagrin, and never does find the query letter in the dumpster.
Embarrassing Nickname: A variant, as introduced in book 1 (Buried in a Book). The local café is "Catcher in the Rye", and the owner, a Big Ed, assigns customers a card with a literary or other inspirational name to be called when their order is introduced. One of the customers on Lila's first visit, an adult man named Mr. Hodges, is not thrilled to have the name "Rumpelstiltskin" (and apparently it's not the first time he's gotten it).
Fortune Teller: Lila's mother Althea works as "Amazing Althea", a professional psychic, specializing in tarot readings. She'll also use tarot cards to predict her daughter's future, which does not usually thrill Lila.
Out of Job, into the Plot: Book 1 (Buried in a Book) kicks off its plot when Lila Wilkins loses her job at the Dunston Herald to downsizing and has to move to Inspiration Valley, the small hamlet where her mother lives, when she's hired by the Novel Idea Literary Agency... and ends up solving murders.
Struggling Single Mother: Lila is one — she explains in book 1 (Buried in a Book) that she divorced her husband when she caught him sleeping with another woman during her pregnancy, and while she's had a steady job for about twenty years, she still has bills to worry about (including her son's college fund) and has recently had a change of careers. And at the time she explains this, she now has to replace her car and pay for repairs to the football field where it was wrecked.
Third-Person Person: Zach Cohen, when introducing himself to Lila in book 1 (Buried in a Book), refers to himself as "the Zach Attack" more than once. Lila, for her part, finds his third-person habit annoying.

Books 3-5:

The Alleged Expert: Book 5 (Off the Books) has one of these as its murder victim — Chuck Richards, a handyman who is discovered to have done shoddy work for more than a few of his customers, resulting in bad accidents at their place of business. Lila actually suspects this might be a motive for his murder after learning this, but it turns out to be for other reasons.
Asshole Victim:
- Book 3 (Books, Cooks, and Crooks) has Klara Patrick, who's generally a nasty person. Among other things, she sabotaged an attempt by one of her assistants to get a better job, and late in the book, it's revealed that she and her husband were using recipes that Brian had received from an older woman he'd befriended, and both had refused to let the killer — that woman's granddaughter — have them back.
- Book 5 (Off the Books) has Chuck Richards, who's revealed to be a handyman and contractor who does poor work (though not on purpose, as far as it's revealed) that inadvertently fails and causes accidents, costing his customers even more money to get it repaired; he's also a domestic abuser of the physical, mental and emotional kind, which is what led to his murder when the mother of one of his victims decides enough is enough.
Bludgeoned to Death: In book 4 (Played by the Book), this is how Fannie Walker died — bludgeoned with a garden spade.
Bound and Gagged: Late in book 5 (Off the Books), having pursued the killer's accomplice back to the Magnolia Bed and Breakfast, Lila finds the inn's owner Cora Scott in this condition, and with a head injury to boot.
The Corpse Stops Here: Variant in book 5 (Off the Books), where it's not law enforcement but chef Oscar Belmonte, owner of a local restaurant, who finds Lila with a screwdriver in hand and standing over the dead body of handyman Chuck Richards (whom she's just found dead with a nail in his forehead) and immediately assumes she did it. Fortunately, the police are more understanding and don't suspect her.
Cut Short: While the individual mysteries in the first five books were each solved, the last ended with a number of ongoing plotlines unresolved. These include Lila's upcoming wedding to her fiancé Sean, her son Trey's plan to eventually become a professional chef with a restaurant of his own, and her mother Althea's new romance with restauranteur Oscar Belmonte.
Department of Child Disservices: The climax of book 4 (Played by the Book) reveals this as the motive for Fannie Walker's death — years ago, she'd failed to do a proper background check on the Cobb family, and didn't realize Mr. Cobb was in fact an abusive drunkard, so she placed a teenage girl, Rachel, with he and his wife; consequently, Cobb later killed Rachel in a fit of temper. Thirty years later, after Rachel's skeleton is discovered buried in Lila's garden (her house used to belong to the Cobbs, but Mr. Cobb has since died and his wife had to move into an assisted living facility), Rachel's younger brother talks to Fannie and not only figures out it must have been Rachel's body that was found, he learns Fannie was responsible for placing Rachel with the Cobbs in the first place and is thus indirectly responsible for her death. As a result, he loses his own temper and kills Fannie.
Domestic Abuse:
- Book 4 (Played by the Book) has the late Doug Cobb, who was a drunk who terrorized his wife and was abusive to his two foster daughters, ultimately killing the second one.
- Book 5 (Off the Books) features Chuck Richards as the victim, who's killed because he was a domestic abuser, both physically beating his wife (who divorced him for it) and later his girlfriend, whom he also emotionally abused and manipulated to make her dependent on him and come back to him even after her mother sent her away. This abuse is what leads to his ex-wife and his fiancee's mother killing him.
Even Evil Has Standards: In book 3 (Books, Cooks, and Crooks), when the killer confesses to poisoning Klara Patrick, they also admit that they took steps (namely, stealing the tainted coffee cup and disposing of it in a trash can down the street) to make sure that Makayla, the coffee shop's owner, wouldn't be implicated in the crime.
Frame-Up:
- Discussed and subverted in book 3 (Books, Cooks, and Crooks) — when the killer confesses to poisoning Klara Patrick, they also admit that they took steps (namely, stealing the tainted coffee cup and disposing of it in a trash can down the street) to make sure the coffee shop's owner wouldn't be implicated in the crime.
- In book 5 (Off the Books), Lila suspects the killer is doing this to Jodi Lee (one of the authors represented by Novel Ideas, and a suspect in Chuck Richards' murder since he was killed the same way as a victim in her newest book); a strip of pneumatic nails, the same kind used to kill Chuck Richards, had been found in her room at the Bed and Breakfast where she was staying, and Lila thinks they may have been planted to frame her. It turns out she's right — the real killer admits they framed Jodi to keep the cops off their trail until after they'd left the country, and intended to alert them to Jodi's innocence once they were safely out of reach.
He Knows Too Much: Books 3, 4 and 5/(All five books) end with Lila having figured out the killer's identity and the killer (or in book 5's case, their accomplice) trying to murder Lila in retaliation in order to cover up their crimes.
He's Got a Weapon!: In book 4 (Played by the Book), while Lila and Makayla are waiting at Fannie Walker's house in Makayla's car, a strange car pulls up. Lila isn't scared, thinking it's the cop they're expecting (whom she was told lives in the neighborhood and will stop to let them in on his way home); Makayla, on the other hand, is initially very nervous since it's a civilian car rather than a marked cop car, and has an outright panic attack when she sees the driver reaching behind his back, screeching "Gun! He's got a gun!" Because of her screams, Lila is too petrified to move or say anything at first, but both women soon relax when the man only pulls out his wallet and flips it open to reveal his police badge before coming over and introducing himself.
I Call It "Vera": Book 4 (Played by the Book) sees Lila's mother Althea bringing out an old shotgun (for protection) that used to belong to Lila's father, introducing it as "Rusty".
If I Had a Nickel...: In book 4 (Played by the Book), while Lila's stopping at a local nursing home, she nearly gets run over by one of the residents, who's speeding through the halls on his power scooter (pausing only long enough to apologize and explain that he's on his way to a poker game). The employee she's with tells Lila that he's "Our resident speedster" and comments that "If I could fine him for every time I caught him speeding, I'd make a fortune."
Improvised Weapon:
- In book 4 (Played by the Book), the killer is revealed to have snatched up a convenient garden spade to beat the book's victim to death. In the climax, Flora Merriweather saves Lila and knocks out the killer by smacking them over the head with a heavy serving tray.
- Late in book 5 (Off the Books), after Lila confronts the killer's accomplice and said accomplice is arrested, she and the cops find her coworker Zach upstairs with a welt on his head. Olive, the dog he was watching (and who was locked in the room with him), quickly points them to the weapon the accomplice used to make that injury (and then hid in the room's bed) — an ordinary billiard ball.
Love Makes You Crazy: In book 3 (Books, Cooks, and Crooks), this turns out to be the killer's motive — she was in love with Klara Patrick's husband, and was willing to do anything to make him love her, including getting rid of his wife (who was a thoroughly nasty person).
Mama Bear: Book 5 (Off the Books)'s main killer turns out to be the mother of Chuck Richards' fiancee, who recognizes him for the abusive wife-beater type that he is and killed him to make sure he would never hurt her daughter or any other woman ever again.
Murder by Mistake: In book 3 (Books, Cooks, and Crooks), the killer tampers with a gas stove, resulting in an explosion that blows the door off; the door strikes and kills Joel Lang, who was practicing his recipes. The killer later admits that Joel wasn't the intended target — they'd expected Klara Patrick, whom they knew practiced making her dishes the night before taping each episode of her TV show, to be the first one to use that oven.
Mysterious Note: In book 4 (Played by the Book), Lila finds one with an Implied Death Threat on her desk at work. Naturally, it leaves her very rattled.
Mystery Magnet: By book 3 (Books, Cooks, and Crooks), Lila's developed a reputation for finding dead bodies, to the point where her coworker Zach outright starts referring to her as a "murder magnet". Naturally, she is very distressed by this.
Nail 'Em: In book 5 (Off the Books), handyman Chuck Richards is found dead with a pneumatic nail embedded in his forehead, having been killed with a nail gun which it's later revealed the killer brought with her, since he didn't have one of his own.
Outliving One's Offspring: Referenced briefly in book 5 (Off the Books) when Lila sees Chuck Richards' mother at his funeral and her heart goes out to the woman, thinking to herself that "A parent should never have to attend their own child's funeral."
Raised by Grandparents: In book 5 (Off the Books), Oscar Belmonte (owner of Machiavelli's, a local restaurant) is mentioned to be raising his granddaughter Anna after her parents died in an accident a few years back; he even moved from New Jersey to North Carolina to give her a better life.
Rebuff the Amateur: In book 5 (Off the Books), after Lila tells Sean about some information she's recently learned about a possible motive for Chuck Richards' murder, he thanks her, but asks her to not go looking for more information. It's portrayed sympathetically though, as he follows this up by saying that he couldn't stand it if she got hurt in the process of investigating — as nearly happened in book 4 (Played by the Book) — and he lost her as a result.
Revisiting the Cold Case: In book 4 (Played by the Book), Lila ends up involved in one when her son finds a human skull buried in her backyard (after which the cops dig up the rest of the skeleton). It turns out to belong to a girl who was murdered and buried there thirty years before.
Shear Menace: In the climax of book 4 (Played by the Book), after the killer is identified and explains why they killed, they grab a convenient pair of garden shears to stab and kill Lila so she can't expose them. Fortunately, Lila's coworker Flora Merriweather arrives in time to stop them.
Stuff Blowing Up: In book 3 (Books, Cooks, and Crooks), the killer rigs an oven in the demo kitchen to explode (with the intention of catching their intended target in the blast), first by tampering with the gas connection so gas will be leaking into the oven for some time before it's turned on, then putting a few cans of non-stick cooking spray inside. Their intention is that when the oven is turned on and gets hot enough, the leaking gas will trigger an explosion and the cooking spray will amplify the blast. When the blast does happen, it blows the door off the oven, striking and killing Joel Lang (who'd been practicing his dishes in the kitchen that night, and had unwittingly turned on the rigged oven).
Tampering with Food and Drink: In book 3 (Books, Cooks, and Crooks), after their first attempt at murder hits the wrong target, the killer resorts to a more direct method by slipping arsenic into Klara Patrick's coffee cup, resulting in her death.
Trauma Button: In book 5 (Off the Books) Lila hasn't been very comfortable working in her garden for some months, since that's where she was attacked by the killer in the climax of book 4 (Played by the Book). Later, after Chuck Richards is murdered with a nail gun, Lila starts getting the shivers whenever she sees one.
Two Dun It: The climax of book 5 (Off the Books) reveals that while one woman actually committed the murder of Chuck Richards, she had an accomplice who helped her set up his murder and later injures Cora Scott and Zach Cohen in the process of trying to flee the area.
Vehicular Sabotage: Late in book 4 (Played by the Book), Lila gets a call that her son had been in a car accident and is in the hospital (fortunately, he wasn't actually hurt). When he gets to speak to her, Trey clarifies that the accident happened when he suddenly lost control, driving off the road and into a utility pole; the police soon inform Lila that someone deliberately caused his accident by cutting the power steering line in his car. Lila and Sean both come to suspect, and the killer later confirms, that they'd thought it was Lila's car (not realizing she'd borrowed it from her son) and sabotaged it in order to cause an accident and scare her off investigating.

Scottish Bookshop Mysteries; by Paige Shelton (series ongoing)

Literature.Scottish Bookshop Mysteries (by Paige Shelton)
- Anon's note: I own 1-6.

Scottish Bookshop Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Paige Shelton. The series features Delaney Nichols, an archivist from Kansas, who's just lost her museum job and subsequently moves to Edinburgh, Scotland, to work at a bookstore called "The Cracked Spine", which specializes in hard-to-find books and other items. There, she develops new friendships with her coworkers and others, but also begins stumbling onto murder mysteries.

The series consists of:

#01: The Cracked Spine (2016)
#02: Of Books and Bagpipes (2017)
#02.5: "A Christmas Tartan" (2016 e-book; later collected in the paperback edition of book 3)
#03: Lost Books and Old Bones (2018)
#04: The Loch Ness Papers (2019)
#05: The Stolen Letter (2020)
#06: Deadly Editions (2021)
#07: The Burning Pages (2022)
#08: Fateful Words (2023)
#09: The Poison Pen (2024)
#10: Written in Stone (announced for April 2025)

This series provides examples of:

Scumble River Mysteries; by Denise Swanson (series ongoing)

Literature.Scumble River Mysteries (by Denise Swanson)
- Anon's note: I own and have troped #1-3 (including 2.5), and own but have not yet troped #4-11 (including 6.5), #13-sequel series #3; need to fill in #12. (And sequel series #4.)

Scumble River Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Denise Swanson. The series features Skye Denison, a school psychologist who's left no choice but to return home to Scumble River, Illinois, after losing her job over supposed "insubordination" and her fiancé left her the same day. Being hired at the local elementary, middle and high school, she has to deal with difficult parents who refuse to admit their kids have done anything wrong, an administration who gives in to the parents' wishes on a regular basis, and people in general who don't like it when she winds up investigating the dead bodies that start cropping up in town.

The series consists of:

#01: Murder of a Small-Town Honey (2000)
#02: Murder of a Sweet Old Lady (2001)
#02.5: "Not a Monster of a Chance" (2001)^note
#03: Murder of a Sleeping Beauty (2002)
#04: Murder of a Snake in the Grass (2003)
#05: Murder of a Barbie and Ken (2003)
#06: Murder of a Pink Elephant (2004)
#06.5: "Dead Blondes Tell No Tales" (2005)^note
#07: Murder of a Smart Cookie (2005)
#08: Murder of a Real Bad Boy (2006)
#09: Murder of a Botoxed Blonde (2007)
#10: Murder of a Chocolate-Covered Cherry (2008)
#11: Murder of a Royal Pain (2009)
#12: Murder of a Wedding Belle (2010)
#13: Murder of a Bookstore Babe (2011)
#14: Murder of a Creped Suzette (2011)
#15: Murder of the Cat's Meow (2012)
#16: Murder of a Stacked Librarian (2013)
#17: Murder of a Needled Knitter (2014)
#18: Murder of An Open Book (2015)
#19: Murder of a Cranky Catnapper (2016)

After the end of the original series, a sequel series, Welcome Back to Scumble River, was launched the following year. It consists of:

#1: Dead in the Water (2017)
#2: Die Me a River (2018)
#3: Come Homicide or High Water (2019)
#4: Body Over Troubled Waters (2021)

This series provides examples of:

Accidental Murder: This is how Lorelei Ingels dies in book 3 — she's been taking diet pills, and suffers an accidental overdose when even more are slipped into her water by her own mother.
And I'm the Queen of Sheba: In book 3, Priscilla VanHorn accuses one of the judges of the beauty pageant her daughter Zoe is taking part in of purposely giving her a harder question than the other competitors. The emcee tries to calm her, but Priscilla retorts with this trope:
Emcee: "I'm sure the process [of choosing the questions for the competitors] is completely random."
Priscilla: "And I'm Princess Grace."
Arrested for Heroism: More like "fired for refusing to not report someone for wrongdoing", which is why Skye ends up back in Scumble River — she'd been working at a New Orleans school, but after making out and submitting a report on a case of child abuse, her boss ordered her to retract it (in order to appease a wealthy and powerful individual), and the child herself refused to back up her statement (having been bullied into saying she made it all up). The end result was that Skye was fired, with the official reason being "insubordination".
Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario: A multi-book case.
- In book 2, Skye goes against Chief Boyd's wishes by going to visit a group of survivalists who live on the property next to her late grandmother's. He gets furious at her for what he feels is her putting herself in danger, and their friendship is effectively cut off for some months, during which he's rather hostile to her anytime she gets involved in the current case. It's not until late in the events of book 3 that they make up and become friends again.
- Book 2 also sees Simon breaking up with Skye because he wants to take their relationship further than she's comfortable with. Like she and Walter Boyd, Skye and Simon also make up and start dating again in book 3.
Disqualification-Induced Victory: Attempted but subverted in book 3. At one point, Skye is called to deal with a pair of third-graders, Cassie and Shauna. Cassie had won the title role in a dance recital of Rapunzel, and as Shauna explains to Skye, she tried to claim the role for herself by first telling Cassie that she'd better give her the role instead. When Cassie refused, Shauna tries to pull this trope by making Cassie unable to perform — by seizing one of her braids and cutting it off with a pair of scissors so she'll no longer look the part, sending a very upset Cassie running off to hide in a bathroom. After all is explained and the mothers are called in, it's decided that not only is Cassie not disqualified (she'll just have to wear a wig during the performance), Shauna's been barred from having any part in the recital for her actions.
Faking the Dead: In "Not a Monster of a Chance", Karleen Petty fakes her death via a supposed lake monster so she can escape her abusive husband and run off with her younger boyfriend.
First Girl Wins: More like first guy. When she was fifteen, Skye had a major crush on police officer Wally Boyd, who was eight years older and her first love. He later married a woman named Darleen, but she leaves him in book 2 after having found she was sterile in book 1, and while Skye is torn between Wally and the resident coroner Simon Reid at first, she ends up breaking up with Simon in book 7 and officially marries Wally in book 15.
Honorary Uncle: Skye and Vince's godfather, Charlie Patukas, whom they call "Uncle Charlie".
I Coulda Been a Contender!: In book 3, this is part of Lorna Ingals' backstory — she was a beauty-pageant competitor and was all set to be Miss Illinois before she suddenly started to gain weight (having fallen pregnant with a child she would later miscarry), which knocked her out of the competition. She's been living vicariously through Lorelei and Linette ever since.
I Never Got Any Letters: In book 2, Skye meets an old friend, Trixie Frayne (neé Benson), whose family moved from Scumble River to Rockford long ago, and never wrote back to her. Trixie admits that her parents "had the misguided idea that I would adjust better if I didn't have any reminders of Scumble River, so they never gave me any mail". They finally confessed to this when she was getting ready to move back as an adult.
It's for a Book: In book 3, Skye uses this excuse on her student Justin Boward to explain why she's breaking into the funeral home. He doesn't buy it for an instant, and ends up helping her break in to get a copy of Lorelei Ingels' autopsy report.
Love Triangle: Up until book 7, Skye is torn between coroner Simon Reid and police chief Walter "Wally" Boyd. The triangle ends when she and Simon officially break up for good in book 7.
My Beloved Smother: Skye loves her parents deeply, but as noted in book 3, at times she feels like she's fighting a losing battle with her mother over her need to be independent versus her mother's insistence on taking care of her needs.
Offing the Offspring: Accidentally in book 3. Lorna Ingels has been slipping diet pills — which Lorelei had secretly started taking again on her own, after initially quitting them — into her daughter's food and drink to force her to lose weight, all so she'll have a better chance at a beauty pageant, and winds up causing her to die of an overdose... along with her unborn baby.
"Scooby-Doo" Hoax: "Not a Monster of a Chance" has the culprits set up a fake lake monster — an old canoe painted green — and use it to make it look like there's a creature in the lake at the Scumble River Recreation Club. The whole setup is so that Karleen Petty can escape her abusive husband via faking her death and running off with her younger boyfriend.
Self-Disposing Villain: The culprit in book 2 winds up dying when, while fleeing in their car, they skid off the road and into a tree. As the car had no airbags and the culprit wasn't wearing a seat belt, they're dead before emergency services can get them to the hospital.
Small Town Boredom: This is a big part of why Skye left Scumble River in the first place, to the point where she said during her high school valedictorian address that she felt Scumble River was a "small town, full of small-minded people, with even smaller intellects".
Stage Mom: Brought up a lot in book 3.
- Skye is roped into taking her two "nieces" (Iris and Kristin, the daughters of Ginger and Gillian, the twin daughters of Skye's mother's sister Minnie) to the Junior Miss Stanley County pageant, and notices a couple of these hanging around. Iris and Kristin reassure her that their moms aren't like that though (they don't get mean, yell or drunk if the girls lose, they just swear a little at the judges sometimes), and that the girls really do like competing.
- Skye later talks with some of the other moms and aunts and learns that Lorna Ingels (mother of the book's murder victim, and also of another competitor in the pageant) is definitely a stage mom, having even subtly sabotaged some competitors (via doing things like stepping on and ripping a girl's hem, or deliberately getting lipstick on another girl's dress) to boost her own daughter's chance of winning. She eventually learns that Lorna is worse than she thought — when Lorelei wanted to quit, Lorna screamed at her until she agreed to go back and finish up the season, and mocked her for gaining weight after she temporarily went off her diet pills (and Lorna sneaking extra doses of them into Lorelei's food and drink after she started them again, without telling Lorna, is what killed the girl). Priscilla VanHorn later tells Skye that Lorna was so obsessed with making her daughters into pageant queens because she'd lost her own chance due to falling pregnant before she could compete for Miss Illinois.
- Priscilla VanHorn is also one, to the point where, during one pageant, she physically attacks one of the judges when she thinks they purposely gave her daughter a trickier question to answer than the other girls. This backfires, in that it gets her arrested and Zoe disqualified.
- Utterly averted with May Denison, who recounts an incident where she entered Skye in a pageant when she was six... and withdrew her after the first round when she saw how scared and upset Skye was.
Tampering with Food and Drink: In book 3, this is how Lorelei Ingels dies — someone had been slipping diet pills into her food and drink, until she accidentally overdoses because she'd already been taking them on her own, and the extra doses proved to be too much. The culprit turns out to be her own mother.
Teacher/Student Romance: In book 3, while investigating Lorelei Ingels' death, Skye overhears a couple of her classmates saying she was having a relationship with a teacher. She's interrupted before she can find out more, but she later finds that Lorelei was sleeping with Skye's then-boyfriend, Kent Walker (the high school's new English teacher, who was hired to fill in for a teacher out on maternity leave), for better grades.

Second Chance Cat Mysteries; by Darlene Ryan as Sofie Ryan (series ongoing)

Literature.Second Chance Cat Mysteries (by Sofie Ryan)
- Anon's note: I own 1-8 and 10 (including the e-book).

Second Chance Cat Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Darlene Ryan writing as Sofie Ryan. The series features Sarah Grayson, who has opened a second-hand shop in North Harbor, Maine and is raising a rescue cat named Elvis. She also finds herself stumbling across mysteries, to the dismay of her friend Nick (a death examiner for the local medical office) who would prefer that she and four elderly friends of hers, who are also involved in her business (and one of whom is Nick's mother), leave such things to the police.

The series consists of:

#01: The Whole Cat and Caboodle (2014)
#02: Buy a Whisker (2015)
#03: A Whisker of Trouble (2016)
#03.5: "No More Pussyfooting Around" (2016)^note
#04: Telling Tails (2017)
#05: The Fast and the Furriest (2017)
#06: No Escape Claws (2019)
#07: Claw Enforcement (2020)
#08: Undercover Kitty (2021)
#09: Totally Pawstruck (2022)
#10: Scaredy Cat (2023)
#11: Fur Love or Money (2024)

This series provides examples of:

Acquitted Too Late: In book 1, it's explained that Detective Michelle Andrews used to be friends with Sarah when they were younger, until Michelle's father Rob went to prison for embezzlement and Sarah made some angry remarks in the heat of the moment about wishing he was dead; soon afterward, he would indeed die of a fast-acting cancer. After the two begin to repair their friendship, Sarah and her friends spend the next few books doing some investigations into the crime he supposedly committed, knowing that even if they do prove his innocence, it'll be this trope, but they feel it's worth it to help Michelle. In book 6, they succeed in proving he was framed, and the real culprit is arrested.
By-the-Book Cop: Nicolas "Nick" Elliot is a death examiner for the local medical office, but he winds up filling this role, and constantly tells his mother and her friends to stay out of police business on the grounds that it's too dangerous for them, even after the face of the agency, Alfred Peterson, has officially and legally become a registered private investigator early in book 3. He eventually comes to accept that there's nothing he can do to stop them from investigating and starts actively cooperating with them.
Chain of Deals: In book 1, Sarah Grayson explains that she got her house this way, over the course of a few years. She cleaned out a barn, which had an old Volkswagen beetle (which hadn't been driven in twenty-five years) in it; the owner said if she could get it out, it was hers. She did, then got her stepbrother to fix it up a bit, traded it for an old MG, traded that for a camper van that she lived in for six months, traded that for a one-room cabin that she and her college roommate lived in for their last year of college, and finally used the cabin as a down payment on her house.
Clear Their Name: In several books, the Angels get involved in a case where the chief suspect is a friend of theirs, or even one of them, and have to do this.
- Their first case involves them working to clear their friend Madeleine Hamilton, who's been accused of killing her boyfriend.
- Book 2 has Liz as the main suspect.
- Book 5 has Sarah's friend and employee Mac as the main suspect.
- Book 6 has the Angels hired by Mallory Pearson, who wants them to prove her father (who'd entered a plea deal and gone to prison) innocent of her mother's murder. They not only succeed, they clear the name of Rob Andrews, who'd gone to prison for embezzlement when Sarah was fifteen and whose case they'd been working on over the course of multiple books.
Convenient Coma: Subverted in books 5 and 6, where a comatose patient is treated very realistically. In book 5, Mac reveals his past: his wife Leila fell into a coma from carbon monoxide poisoning almost two years ago and has been under a doctor's care ever since. At the end of the book, he finally goes back to see her for the first time since her parents gained legal control of her care; book 6 reveals that she died, still comatose, two weeks later.
Dark and Troubled Past: Mac Mackenzie / McKenzie, Sarah's right-hand man and jack-of-all-trades at Second Chance, has his revealed in book 5 when someone from his past returns. He eventually admits to Sarah that his wife Leila has been in a coma from carbon monoxide poisoning for almost two years, and he moved away because her parents, who never approved of him and thought he was the one responsible for it, sued him for legal control over her care and won. By book's end, he's been cleared of both that crime and the murder of her best friend, who'd figured out the real culprit, and the person responsible for both acts has been arrested.
Determinator: No matter how many times they're told to leave crime-solving to the police, Sarah's friends Elizabeth "Liz" French, Charlotte Elliot, Rose Jackson and Alfred "Mr. P." Peterson just will not stop investigating until the crime is solved.
Eek, a Mouse!!: The climax of the first book features this — Elvis, the titular "second chance cat" (a former stray adopted by the owner of a second-hand/repurposing shop) drops a nearly-dead mouse on the killer's foot, distracting her before she can shoot Elvis's owner (who's able to duck behind a counter with the time given). This also gives the cops time to burst in and arrest the panicking killer before she regains her senses. Elvis's owner also takes a few nervous steps back when someone points out, after the arrest, that the mouse is real — and still twitching — and not a toy like she thought.
Evil-Detecting Dog: Or cat, in this case. Elvis is essentially a living lie detector, and Sarah has come to rely on his senses to determine when people aren't being honest.
Expensive Glass of Crap:
- In book 3, Sarah is hired to help clean out a house of a recently deceased man, who'd invested in rare and expensive wine so as to provide an inheritance for his son and grandchildren. It turns out he was scammed into buying this type instead; the man who was hired to appraise the collection discovered the fact and was trying to trace the original sellers when he ended up the Victim of the Week.
- The same book has another potential culprit in the murder who was also attempting to scam people into buying fake wines. The heroes set up a sting operation to catch him, which works, but he turns out to not be the killer.
Inheritance Murder: In book 4, while investigating the victim of the book, Sarah discovers that his grandmother had come into a great deal of money suddenly. She also finds that the woman had died just as suddenly, and it's all but confirmed that her grandson switched her medications to kill her so he'd inherit that same money.
Leave No Witnesses: Almost every killer in the books tries to kill Sarah when she catches on to their crime.
- In book 3, a wine appraiser discovers that his client, who'd hired him to appraise the man's father's wine collection and subsequently found they were fakes, has been selling off the fakes in an effort to get some of the money back. When the appraiser intends to report this to the police, he gets killed for it to cover up the scam.
- In book 5, Mac finally admits to Sarah that he's married, and his wife's been in a coma due to carbon monoxide poisoning for almost two years. When Leila's best friend figures out the person responsible and tries to contact Mac to tell him, the one responsible kills her.
Little Old Lady Investigates: While main protagonist Sarah Grayson (owner of a secondhand/"repurpose" shop in Maine) is relatively young, her employees include two of her grandmother's friends, the elderly duo of Charlotte Elliot and Rose Jackson, and they're also friends with Elizabeth "Liz" French, and Rose's eventual boyfriend Alfred "Mr. P." Peterson. When a friend of theirs is accused of murder, the four set up shop as detectives in order to clear her name, dubbing themselves "Charlotte's Angels" (with Mr. P as their Bosley), and are surprisingly good at it. Neither Sarah (who tries to keep out of their detecting but winds up their "Charlie") or Charlotte's son Nick are exactly thrilled by this, but the trio and Mr. P. just ignore anyone who tells them to stop.
Offing the Offspring: Or stepson, in this case. The victim in book 7 is poisoned by his stepfather when he refuses to pay back what he owes them — money the victim's mother desperately needed to pay for medical treatments.
Passed-Over Inheritance: In book 4, Elizabeth "Liz" French mentions that she'll pay for her grandchildren's college tuition, but other than that, her money is going to charity when she dies.
Playful Hacker: Mr. P is repeatedly described by Sarah as "the world's oldest hacker". He's never malicious about it though, instead using his skills in their agency's detective work.
Raised by Grandparents:
- One of Sarah's employees is Avery, a teenage girl attending a private school; due to some difficulties with her parents, she lives with her grandmother, Elizabeth "Liz" French, who is one of Sarah's friends and later a member of the Charlotte's Angels detective agency.
- In book 4, one of Sarah's clients is Jeff Cameron, who soon turns up dead. In the course of investigating, she finds he and his sister were raised by their grandmother after their parents died.
Rebuff the Amateur: Nicolas "Nick" Elliot is a death examiner for the local medical office, who constantly tells his mother and her friends to stay out of police business on the grounds that it's too dangerous for them. The trio just as constantly ignore him and anyone else who does the same thing though, and eventually the face of the agency, Alfred Peterson, officially and legally becomes a registered private investigator early in book 3 to give them legal credibility.
Romantic False Lead: Over the course of the first few books, many of Sarah's friends and family are in favor of her hooking up with Nicolas "Nick" Elliot, a death examiner for the local medical office and grandson of one of Sarah's own grandmother's friends. Eventually, they accept that they're not meant to be, and she begins a more successful relationship with her friend and employee Mac Mackenzie.
Same Face, Different Name: While the books are published under the name Sofie Ryan, the author also publishes nonfiction and young adult books under her real name of Darlene Ryan, and another Cozy Mystery series, Magical Cats Mysteries, under the name Sofie Kelly.
Shipper on Deck: Most of the people Sarah's close to — Charlotte's Angels, her grandmother, her stepbrother, her friend Jess and Avery in particular — are in favor of her hooking up with Charlotte's son Nick Elliot. Sarah, however, has her doubts at times, and eventually admits that she and Nick are more Like Brother and Sister. Her older friends promptly start shipping her with her friend and employee Mac Mackenzie instead, which proves more successful.
Shout-Out: Sarah's cat Elvis is a fan of Jeopardy!.
Sudden Name Change: The first time Mac's last name is given, in book 5, it's spelled McKenzie. In book 6 on, it's given as Mackenzie instead.
Take That!: An In-Universe example. North Harbor has an apartment complex known as Legacy Place, serving as a retirement community for seniors, but Sarah's friend Rose (who lives there) derisively refers to it as Shady Pines after the Bleak Abyss Retirement Home of the same name in The Golden Girls. This eventually backfires when her attitude gets her evicted in book 2 (and doesn't improve her opinion; she continues to refer to it as Shady Pines in later books), and she moves into one of the apartments in Sarah's house.
Thoroughly Mistaken Identity: In book 6, Judge Neill Halloran keeps mistakenly referring to Sarah by her grandmother's name. He eventually admits to being in the early stages of dementia, throwing his earlier witness statement that he was positive about the identity of the person he saw walking away from a crime scene, who was subsequently found guilty and sent to jail, into question.
We Used to Be Friends: Downplayed with Sarah Grayson and Michelle Andrews, who were close until they were fifteen when Sarah, in a fit of anger, yelled that she wished Michelle's father (who'd recently gone to jail for embezzlement and would later end up dead in prison, three months into a four-year sentence, of a fast-acting cancer) was a horrible person and that she wished he was dead instead of her own father, a kind, loving man who'd died in a car accident when Sarah was five. Michelle overheard and ran off before hearing Sarah say she hadn't actually meant it, and they've been distant ever since, until late in book 1 when Sarah finds out just why Michelle distanced herself. The two are then able to begin repairing their friendship.

Sunny & Shadow Mysteries; by Claire Donally (series ended/on hold)

Literature.Sunny And Shadow Mysteries (by Claire Donally)
- Anon's note: I own 1-3.

Sunny & Shadow Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Claire Donally. The series features Sonata "Sunny" Coolidge, a reporter who's returned to her hometown of Kittery Harbor, Maine, to care for her ailing father after his heart attack, and stumbles onto a dead body one day, marking the first mystery she must solve.

The series consists of:

#1: The Big Kitty (2012)
#2: Cat Nap (2013)
#3: Last Licks (2014)
#4: Hiss and Tell (2015)
#5: Catch as Cat Can (2016)

This series provides examples of:

Battleaxe Nurse: One turns out to be the killer in book 3, fatally inducing air bubble embolisms (meant to mimic the appearance of a stroke) in the patients at the rehab center where she works because she's sick and tired of the low pay and not being appreciated by her boss.
Rotating Protagonist: While the entire series is told via third-person narration, most of the scenes follow Sunny. However, there are periodic switches to scenes focused on the cat Shadow, giving his thoughts and point of view of the situation.
Unexpected Inheritance: Almost as the punchline, the last chapter of book 1 reveals that Sunny had been named in Ada Spruance's will, for the help she'd given Ada before the woman's death. Ada leaves her... her choice of any of the stray cats Ada had been caring for in her home. This suits Sunny just fine, since Shadow (one of said cats) had already effectively adopted her.

"Where Are They Now?" Mysteries; by Toni Kelner (series ended/on hold)

Literature.Where Are They Now Mysteries (by Toni Kelner)
- Anon's note: I own 1-4.

Where Are They Now? Mysteries is an amateur sleuth mystery series by Toni Kelner. The series features Tilda Harper, a celebrity reporter who has made a name for herself tracking down stars who've left the spotlight, and finds herself solving mysteries when some of them turn up either dead or targeted by killers.

The series consists of:

#1: Curse of the Kissing Cousins (2008; originally published as Without Mercy)
#2: Who Killed The Pinup Queen? (2010)
#3: Blast From the Past (2011)
#4: The Adventure of the Six Sherlocks (2020; e-book short story)

This series provides examples of:

Do Not Call Me "Paul": Matilda "Tilda" Harper hates her full first name. When her friend Cooper keeps using it to annoy her in book 2, she retaliates by threatening to reveal his childhood nickname "Pookie" to his coworkers if he doesn't stop. The threat proves effective.
Jumping the Shark: Discussed by name in the first book, which focuses on Tilda Harper searching for an actress from the long-ended sitcom Kissing Cousins (about a trio of "normal" siblings and their cousins, a trio of equally "weird" siblings, coming to live with their grandfather and getting into typical sitcom shenanigans), and includes episode summaries, excerpts from interviews with cast and crew, and other reviews of the show. It's noted in narration that another set of cousins (seven-year-old twins, one "normal" and one "weird") were added to try and counter falling ratings in the last season, but it failed miserably — fans considered their arrival to be when the show jumped the shark. (The actresses themselves don't seem to realize how disliked they were.)
Murder by Mistake: In book 2, the killer has been contacted by a would-be blackmailer (who accuses him of a crime that he committed decades ago — and even then, the blackmailer was mistaken about the type of crime he'd committed) and goes to their home to kill them. It's eventually revealed that the woman he suspected and killed was innocent; it was actually her great-niece who was trying to blackmail him.
Murder the Hypotenuse: In book 2, it turns out the killer had done this years ago. His cousin/business partner had fallen in love with a woman and fully intended to marry her, but the killer felt he couldn't have a successful career without his cousin working with him. Viewing the woman and her unborn baby as a threat to their partnership, he murdered them. The cousin was enraged when he finally found out.
Oblivious to Hatred: In book 1, when discussing the long-ended sitcom Kissing Cousins, it's noted that two new cousins were added to the series in its last season, but its viewers didn't care for them and saw them as a contribution to the show's ending. For their part, the actresses who played the roles don't realize how much they're disliked by the show's fandom.

Trivia:

Post-Release Retitle: Justified. The original book was released in hardcover by one publishing company under the title Without Mercy, but when Kelner switched publishers to Berkley Prime Crime for the paperback reprint and sequels, they'd recently published a different book under that name and, to avoid confusion, retitled Kelner's book to Curse of the Kissing Cousins.
Sequel Gap: Nine years between the third book and the e-book short story that followed, during which time the author was working on another series under a pen name — Family Skeleton Mysteries.

Witchcraft Mysteries; by Juliet Blackwell (series ended/on hold)

Literature.Witchcraft Mysteries (by Juliet Blackwell)
- Anon's note: I own #1-5.5, 6.5 and 9-11 (need 6 and 7-8).

Witchcraft Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Juliet Blackwell. The series features Lily Ivory, a San Francisco vintage clothing store owner who also happens to be an undercover witch.

The series consists of:

#01: Secondhand Spirits (2009)
#02: A Cast-Off Coven (2010)
#03: Hexes and Hemlines (2011)
#04: In a Witch's Wardrobe (2012)
#05: Tarnished and Torn (2013)
#05.5: "Fool's Gold" (2013)^note
#06: A Vision in Velvet (2014)
#06.5: "A Haunting is Brewing" (2014)^note
#07: Spellcasting in Silk (2015)
#08: A Toxic Trousseau (2016)
#09: A Magical Match (2018)
#10: Bewitched and Betrothed (2019)
#11: Synchronized Sorcery (2021)

This series provides examples of:

Canon Welding: "A Haunting is Brewing" establishes that the series takes place in the same world as the author's Haunted Home Renovation Mysteries series, and has Lily meeting Melanie "Mel" Turner to work on a case together. Lily also appears in book 8 of the latter series, helping Mel with figuring out the motive of the ghost in her attic.

Witch's Cat Mysteries; by Delia James (series ended/on hold)

Literature.Witchs Cat Mysteries (by Delia James)
- Anon's note: I own all three.

Witch's Cat Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Delia James. The series features Annabelle Britton, who makes a living as an artist before going on vacation to the seaside town of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where she makes a startling discovery about her witchy heritage with the help of Alistair, a cat and familiar whose first owner has recently turned up dead. With his help, Annabelle accepts her role as a witch and begins solving mysteries involving magic, while working with other witches who've dedicated themselves to keeping Portsmouth and its people safe.

The series consists of:

#1: A Familiar Tail (2016)
#2: By Familiar Means (2016)
#3: Familiar Motives (2017)

This series provides examples of:

Kensington Cozies (3 of 14)

Published pages (6 of 14): Country Store Mysteries, Hannah Swensen Mysteries, Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mysteries, Irish Village Mysteries, Jaine Austen Mysteries and Lucy Stone Mysteries.
JacobyInvestigative's sandbox (in development; 3 of 14): Home to Ireland Mysteries, Mrs. Claus Mysteries and Witch City Mysteries.

Bookstore Café Mysteries; by Alex Erickson (series ongoing)

Literature.Bookstore Cafe Mysteries (by Alex Erickson)
- Anon's note: As of 02/22/24, I own #2, 4, 6, 7, 9 and 12; first added the series to my wantlist because of its connection to other books I have via an anthology.

Bookstore Café Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Alex Erickson. The series features Kristina "Krissy" Hancock, who's recently moved to Pine Hills, Ohio and opened the combination café and bookstore "Death by Coffee". However, when a customer suddenly drops dead, Krissy finds herself working with local officer Paul Dalton to solve his murder, and subsequently other murders that happen in town.

The series consists of:

#01: Death by Coffee (2015)
#02: Death by Tea (2015)
#03: Death by Pumpkin Spice (2016)
#04: Death by Vanilla Latte (2017)
#05: Death by Eggnog (2017)
#06: Death by Espresso (2018)
#07: Death by Café Mocha (2019)
#07.5: "Death by Hot Cocoa" (2019)^note
#08: Death by French Roast (2020)
#09: Death by Hot Apple Cider (2021)
#10: Death by Spiced Chai (2022)
#11: Death by Iced Coffee (2023)
#12: Death by Peppermint Cappuccino (2023)
#13: Death by Caramel Macchiato (announced for November 2024)

This series provides examples of:

Accidental Murder: A surprising number of murders weren't planned in the series.
- In Death by Coffee, Tess only wanted to hurt Brendon Lawyer with his peanut allergy, but didn't realize just how severe it was.
- The killer from Death by Espresso didn't mean to kill Cathy, they just hit her so they could get back the necklace. Unfortunately, she was eating her chocolate covered espresso beans at the time and ended up choking to death after she was knocked out.
- In Death by Café Mocha, the killer also never intended to kill Charles Maddox. The guy just hit his head on the way down.
- In Death by French Roast, the killer didn't set out to kill the first victim, she just snapped and hit him in the head with a rock. The second victim years later, on the other hand, she did mean to kill.
Alliterative Name: Cathy Carr, from Death by Espresso.
Asshole Victim: What murder mystery series would be complete without these guys?
- Brendon Lawyer from Death by Coffee was a really sour sort of person.
- Rick Wiseman from Death by Vanilla Latte. The man was a sleazy creep who hit on Krissy in a skin-crawling way.
Bludgeoned to Death: The victim of Death by Tea was killed like this with a silver teapot.
- The victim of Death by Spiced Chai is also beaten to death with a teapot.
Booby Trap: The victim of "Death by Hot Cocoa" was killed by picking up a mug of hot cocoa that had a hidden needle of poison built into the handle.
Christmas Episode: Novel Death by Eggnog and novella "Death by Hot Cocoa".
Death by Falling Over: The murder in Death by Café Mocha. While Charles was hit in the head with a coffee carafe, what killed him was striking his head on the corner of a metal table.
Eye Scream: In book 4, Rick Wiseman is killed by being stabbed in the eye with a pen.
In the Back: Chuck Saunders from Death by Eggnog was killed from being stabbed in the back.
Non-Indicative Name: In book 1, despite his last name being "Lawyer", Brendon Lawyer actually worked in insurance.
Stealing from the Till: This was ultimately the killer's motive in Death by Tea. The killer had been making false orders in the coffee part of Death by Coffee and pocketed the money. The victim tried to extort money from him over this and...wound up on the other side of the dirt.
Trademark Favorite Food: Cathy Carr from Death by Espresso loves eating chocolate covered espresso beans, snacking on them constantly. Unfortunately for her, it really ends up biting her in the ass, as shown in Accidental Murder above.
Vacation Episode: Death by Café Mocha sees Krissy, Rita, and Vicki going to a coffee convention. Of course, somebody just has to get murdered there, don't they?

Knit & Nibble Mysteries; by Peggy Ehrhart (series ongoing)

Literature.Knit And Nibble Mysteries (by Peggy Ehrhart)
- Anon's note: I own and have troped #1-3; own #6.

Knit & Nibble Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Peggy Ehrhart. The series features widowed mother Pamela Paterson, whose daughter has just gone off to college, and who deals with her empty nest syndrome by keeping busy as associate editor of a craft magazine and founder of the Knit and Nibble knitting club in Arborville, New Jersey. But soon, she and her club members must begin a new type of project — solving murders.

The series consists of:

#01: Murder, She Knit (2018)
#02: Died in the Wool (2018)
#03: Knit One, Die Two (2019)
#04: Silent Knit, Deadly Knit (2019)
#05: A Fatal Yarn (2020)
#06: Knit of the Living Dead (2020)
#06.5: "Death of a Christmas Card Crafter" (2020)^note
#07: Knitty Gritty Murder (2021)
#08: Death of a Knit Wit (2022)
#08.5: "Death by Christmas Scarf" (2022) ^note
#09: Irish Knit Murder (2023)
#10: Knitmare on Beech Street (2023)
#10.5: "Murder Most Irish" (2023) ^note
#11: A Dark and Stormy Knit (announced for August 2024)

This series provides examples of:

Abomination Accusation Attack: Late in book 3, the killer tries this as a last-ditch effort — they accuse Pamela of trying to kill them, when they'd in fact been trying to kill her just a few minutes before after Pamela figured out they were the killer. Fortunately, nobody believes them.
Accidental Murder: In book 3, the killer reveals that they set up an accident to try and shut down the play they were taking part in. One such "accident" actually winds up killing Caralee Lorimer, the person who stumbled into it.
Cat Scare: A two-for-one case happens in book 1 when Pamela and her daughter hear a weird gurgling sound outside that makes Pamela suspicious of possible danger after the two recent murders. Penny, against her mother's wishes, opens the door to investigate anyway, and startles (and gets startled by) a small cat that's been hanging out around the house. Then, they find out the noise that first spooked them is actually just a flock of wild turkeys wandering down the street.
Christmas Creep:
- Book 1 has a mention of this when one of the club members grumbles about the town putting up garlands the day after Halloween.
- For a variant, book 3 (set in September) sees Pamela checking the catalogs in her mail and noting "Thanksgiving-inspired covers — already!".
Christmas Episode: Book 4 and novellas 6.5 and 8.5 are all set during the Christmas season.
Empty Nest: The series' background is that Pamela is missing her daughter, who went off to college three months before the start of book 1, and uses the Knit and Nibble knitting club she founded two years before in part as a way of coping with her empty nest syndrome.
Halloween Episode: Book 6 is set during the Halloween season.
If I Can't Have You…: In book 3, Pamela speculates (incorrectly, as it happens) that this could be a motive for Caralee's murder.
Improvised Weapon: In book 1, the first victim — Amy Morgan — is stabbed through the heart with a metal knitting needle.
The Insomniac: Book 2 has Randall Jefferson, the first murder victim, revealed as one some time after his death. It's explained that he'd hired a woman to read him a bedtime story while knitting — the combination of her voice and the click of the knitting needles brought back memories of his mother, which soothed him and helped him fall asleep.
The Lost Lenore: Pamela's husband, an architect, died five years before the start of the series in an accident on a construction site. To this day, she still grieves and hasn't been willing to start dating again, despite Bettina's encouragement.
The Maiden Name Debate: In book 1, Pamela discovers a painting of murder victim Amy Morgan, done by one Chad Lawrence. While tracing its province, she learns he's married to Amy's sister, but Dorrie — whom Pamela had met before — goes by her maiden name instead of her husband's.
Make It Look Like an Accident: In book 3, after Caralee Lorimer was killed by furniture falling on her, her accidental murderer decides to recreate the "accident" on Anthony Wadsworth after realizing he won't cancel the play like the killer wants.
Nervous Wreck: Bettina and Wilfred's dog Woofus is always nervous — someone knocking at the door will send him hiding under the table, and a smaller dog barking at him makes him cower behind his owner (as seen in book 2). This is explained by him being a former shelter dog who evidently had some bad experiences.
Not What It Looks Like:
- Inversion in book 1 when Pamela and her friend Bettina are talking about someone's possible motive for a recent murder, and the server overhears them... but mistakes the conversation as being about an event on a TV show.
- Played straight early in book 3, when Pamela hears Craig Belknap in an argument with Caralee Lorimer (who's murdered the next day) and thinks the argument could be a motive for it. It turns out, as he eventually reveals, that she was just mad at him for putting himself down and doubting his skills as an actor after he got a callback for a part in an off-Broadway play.
Rebuff the Amateur: Several times, Pamela and Bettina are told not to investigate the murders that happen in their town — by the police (who say it's their job and not for civilians), by Nell Bascomb from her knitting club (who doesn't believe in gossip or snooping around, and tells her husband not to help them, though he does anyway), and by Pamela's daughter Penny (who worries about her mom's safety and doesn't want to lose her like she did her dad). Pamela herself isn't too eager to get involved in investigations, but Bettina keeps ignoring anyone who tells her not to go poking around and just drags Pamela into it anyway.
Relative Error: In book 1, Pamela's new neighbor, Richard "Rick" Larkin, has had two younger women stopping in periodically, causing Pamela to suspect that he's a serial seducer with an interest in younger women. When Pamela and Penny are invited in one night though, he reveals that the women in question are his daughters.
Revealing Cover Up: Subverted in book 3 — Pamela begins to suspect that Caralee was killed to keep her from exposing the secrets of some people on her blog, but this turns out to not be the case.
Shipper on Deck: Almost immediately after Richard Larkin moves in next door to Pamela, her friend Bettina starts encouraging Pamela to ask him out. Pamela, however, is hesitant to start a new relationship, as she's still grieving for her late husband.
Starting a New Life: The culprit in book 1 turns out to be an embezzler who used the stolen money to escape her old life and assume a new identity in a new town, then killed two women from her old hometown when they moved to the same new town as she did, ten years later, and recognized her.
Tragic Keepsake: Book 1 has Pamela meet a woman who's oddly obsessed with recovering some yarn (which she says had been sold accidentally by the assistant at her store) that had belonged to Amy Morgan, the first murder victim, and makes Pamela suspicious that she might be in on the murder. Eventually, Pamela agrees to return the yarn when the woman confesses that she'd owned an afghan dog named Buster (who's since died of natural causes), and the yarn was made from his shed hair when he was still alive; she wants it back because it's all she had left of him.

Trivia:

Book 2 features a character named Candace Flynn — not to be confused with Phineas Flynn's sister — in a minor, mentioned-only role.

Maine Clambake Mysteries; by Barbara Ross (series ongoing)

Literature.Maine Clambake Mysteries (by Barbara Ross)
- Anon's note: I own 1-10 and novellas 4.5, 6.5, 7.5 and 9.5.

Maine Clambake Mysteries is an armchair/amateur sleuth/Cozy Mystery series by Barbara Ross. The series features Julia Snowden, who returns to her hometown of Busman's Harbor, Maine, to rescue her family's struggling clambake business. Soon though, she must also begin solving murder mysteries.

The series consists of:

#01: Clammed Up (2013)
#02: Boiled Over (2014)
#03: Musseled Out (2015)
#04: Fogged Inn (2016)
#04.5: "Nogged Off" (2016)^note
#05: Iced Under (2016)
#06: Stowed Away (2017)
#06.5: "Logged On" (2018)^note
#07: Steamed Open (2018)
#07.5: "Hallowed Out" (2019)^note
#08: Sealed Off (2019)
#09: Shucked Apart (2021)
#09.5: "Scared Off" (2021)^note
#10: Muddled Through (2022)
#10.5: "Perked Up" (2023)^note
#11: Hidden Beneath (2023)
#11.5: "Hopped Along" (2024)^note
#12: Torn Asunder (2024)

This series provides examples of:

Christmas Episode: The novellas "Nogged Off" and "Logged On" are both set during the Christmas season.
Halloween Episode: The novellas "Hallowed Out" and "Scared Off" are both set on and around Halloween.
Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every title, including the novellas, follows the same two-word pattern — a verb (ending in "-ed" for the first ten books and five novellas) followed by a nearly always shorter word.

Kensington Cozies trivia

Due to publishing company Kensington's practices, as of 2023, a total of fourteen series by twelve authors are connected (though not part of the same continuity) via fourteen anthologies, while a fifteenth was released in 2024.

The authors and series are:

Lynn Cahoon (Kitchen Witch Mysteries);
Maddie Day (2 series — Country Store Mysteries and Cece Barton Mysteries);
Peggy Ehrhart (Knit And Nibble Mysteries);
Alex Erickson (Bookstore Cafe Mysteries);
Joanne Fluke (Hannah Swensen Mysteries);
Lee Hollis (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mysteries);
Liz Ireland (Mrs Claus Mysteries);
Laura Levine (Jaine Austen Mysteries);
Leslie Meier (Lucy Stone Mysteries);
Carlene O'Connor (2 series — Irish Village Mysteries and Home To Ireland Mysteries);
Carol J. Perry (Witch City Mysteries);
Barbara Ross (Maine Clambake Mysteries).

The anthologies are as follows (in order by release date):

#01: Joanne Fluke's Candy Cane Murder (collects Hannah Swensen Mysteries #9.5, Jaine Austen Mysteries #6.5 and Lucy Stone Mysteries #13.5) (October 2007)
#02: Joanne Fluke's Gingerbread Cookie Murder (collects Hannah Swensen Mysteries #13.5, Jaine Austen Mysteries #9.5 and Lucy Stone Mysteries #17.5) (October 2010)
#03: Leslie Meier's Eggnog Murder (collects Lucy Stone Mysteries #23.5, Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mysteries #8.5 and Maine Clambake Mysteries #4.5) (October 2016)
#04: Leslie Meier's Yule Log Murder (collects Lucy Stone Mysteries #25.5, Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mysteries #10.5 and Maine Clambake Mysteries #6.5) (October 2018)
#05: Carlene O'Connor's Christmas Cocoa Murder (collects Irish Village Mysteries #2.5, Country Store Mysteries #6.5 and Bookstore Cafe Mysteries #7.5) (September 2019)
#06: Leslie Meier's Haunted House Murder (collects Lucy Stone Mysteries #25.7, Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mysteries #0.5 and Maine Clambake Mysteries #7.5) (October 2019)
#07: Joanne Fluke's Christmas Sweets (collects Hannah Swensen Mysteries #8.5, Jaine Austen Mysteries #11.5 and Lucy Stone Mysteries #18.5) (October 2019)
#08: Leslie Meier's Christmas Card Murder (collects Lucy Stone Mysteries #26.5, Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mysteries #13.5 and Knit & Nibble Mysteries #6.5) (October 2020)
#09: Leslie Meier's Halloween Party Murder (collects Lucy Stone Mysteries #27.5, Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mysteries #14.5 and Maine Clambake Mysteries #9.5) (August 2021)
#10: Carlene O'Connor's Christmas Scarf Murder (collects Irish Village Mysteries #8.5, Country Store Mysteries #10.5 and Knit & Nibble Mysteries #8.5) (September 2022)
#11: Leslie Meier's Irish Coffee Murder (collects Lucy Stone Mysteries #28.5, Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mysteries #15.5 and Maine Clambake Mysteries #10.5) (January 2023)
#12: Carlene O'Connor's Halloween Cupcake Murder (collects Home to Ireland Mysteries #3, Mrs. Claus Mysteries #3.5 and Witch City Mysteries #12.5) (August 2023)
#13: Lee Hollis's Christmas Mittens Murder (collects Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mysteries #16.5, Kitchen Witch Mysteries #4.5 and Cece Barton Mysteries #0.5) (September 2023)
#14: Carlene O'Connor's Irish Milkshake Murder (collects Home to Ireland Mysteries #4, Knit & Nibble Mysteries #9.5 and Mrs. Claus Mysteries #4.5) (December 2023)
#15: Leslie Meier's Easter Basket Murder (collects Lucy Stone Mysteries #29.5, Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mysteries #16.7? and Maine Clambake Mysteries #11.5) (January 2024)
#16: Carlene O'Connor's Irish Soda Bread Murder (collects Home to Ireland Mysteries #5, Knit & Nibble Mysteries #11.5, Mrs. Claus Mysteries #5.5) (announced for December 2024)

As of 01/01/24, I (Anon e Mouse Jr.) own seven of the first eleven anthologies in paperback, missing only paperbacks of #5 (Christmas Cocoa Murder), #8 (Christmas Card Murder), #10 (Christmas Scarf Murder) and #11 (Irish Coffee Murder). #12 (Halloween Cupcake Murder) is slated for MMP release in July 2024 and #13 (Christmas Mittens Murder) is slated for MMP release in October 2024, and #14 (Irish Milkshake Murder) and #15 (Easter Basket Murder) are out in hardcover with no paperback announced yet, while #16 (Irish Soda Bread Murder) will have its initial release, in hardcover, on December 24, 2024.

The narrator of "Christmas Cocoa Murder", Amy Landon, also provided the narration for the audiobook of the novel that would be adapted into The Queen's Gambit.

According to her website, Laura Levine, the writer of the Jaine Austen Mysteries created Count Chocula and Frankenberry.

Images (Cozy Mysteries)

Bewitching Mysteries; by Madelyn Alt —
Bibliophile Mysteries; by Kate Carlisle —
Black Cat Bookshop Mysteries; by Ali Brandon —
Bookmobile Cat Mysteries; by Laurie Cass —
Cat Rescue Mysteries; by T. C. LoTempio —
Cats and Curios Mysteries; by Rebecca M. Hale —
Dead-End Job Mysteries; by Elaine Viets —
Dream Club Mysteries; by Mary Kennedy —
Fixer-Upper Mysteries; by Kate Carlisle —
Haunted Home Renovation Mysteries; by Juliet Blackwell —
Key West Food Critic Mysteries; by Lucy Burdette —
Laura Fleming Mysteries; by Toni Kelner —
Lighthouse Library Mysteries; by Vicki Delany as Eva Gates —
Magical Cats Mysteries; by Darlene Ryan as Sofie Kelly —
Nick & Nora Mysteries; by T. C. LoTempio —
Novel Idea Mysteries; by three authors as Lucy Arlington —
Scottish Bookshop Mysteries; by Paige Shelton —
Scumble River Mysteries; by Denise Swanson —
Second Chance Cat Mysteries; by Darlene Ryan as Sofie Ryan —
Sunny & Shadow Mysteries; by Claire Donally —
"Where Are They Now?" Mysteries; by Toni Kelner —
Witchcraft Mysteries; by Juliet Blackwell —
Witch's Cat Mysteries; by Delia James —

Kensington Cozies:

Bookstore Café Mysteries; by Alex Erickson —
Knit & Nibble Mysteries; by Peggy Ehrhart —
Maine Clambake Mysteries; by Barbara Ross —

Miscellaneous non-mystery fiction (3 works):

Misc. Bruce Coville notes

The Enchanted Files — Anon's note: I have troped book 1 and published the page; one trope remains here as I haven't gotten confirmation that it's the right one for the setup.
- Implausible Deniability (?): Alex's reaction, when she first meets Angus (and has even held him in her hand), is to utter "This can't be real" and think she's going crazy. She comes to admit he's real pretty quick though.
Goblins in the Castle — Anon's note: I've troped the full duology and published the page; one trope remains here as it's in the TRS queue.
- "Guttural Growler" (name to change once TRS has been applied): Igor almost always speaks in a growling tone, which Fauna notes in book 2 isn't because he's angry (usually) — it's just the way he talks. He's also incredibly strong, as evidenced in the first book when he shoves aside a massive boulder.

Always October; by Bruce Coville (standalone)

Literature.Always October
- Anon's note: I own this book.

Always October is a standalone work by Bruce Coville, released in 2012 as Coville's 100th published book. It tells the story of Jacob Doolittle and his best friend Lily Carker, whose lives change forever when, one night, Jacob discovers a baby on his doorstep, and soon discovers the child is a literal monster. What follows is a journey through the land of Always October, to learn the baby's origins and how to prevent the unweaving of the world, while also discovering the strange truth about Jacob's family.

This book contains examples of:

Adaptation Expansion: Always October, a full-length standalone novel, originated as the short story "My Little Brother Is a Monster", published in 1993 as the opening story of the anthology Bruce Coville's Book of... Monsters before eventually being expanded.
Doorstop Baby: Dum Pling, AKA "Little Dumpling" (or L.D. for short).
In-Series Nickname: Lily's is "Weird Lily", which she got after an incident in second grade where she made the mistake of singing her new song, "How the Wolf Ate Gramma", for show and tell.
Related in the Adaptation:
- In the original short story "My Little Brother Is a Monster", Jason Burger and his mom adopt Dum Pling / Little Dumpling as a part of their family, but do not share blood with him; nor does Mazrak, the chief enforcer of Dum Pling's father King Bork. In the full novel, Jason is replaced with Jacob Doolittle, whose grandfather Arthur was married twice; his first wife, Tia LaMontagne (alias Teelamun) had two children, Meer Askanza (the mother of Little Dumpling) and Mazrak. After she disappeared and Arthur remarried, his second wife bore him a son, Jacob's father. This makes Little Dumpling into Jacob's paternal cousin by blood (and by extension his mother into Jacob's aunt), and Mazrak into both Jacob and Little Dumpling's uncle.
- In the original short story, only one member of the Council of Poets — Keegel Farzym — was related to Dum Pling. In this version, another of them is his maternal grandmother Teelamun.
Switching P.O.V.: The chapters alternate between Lily and Jacob as the P.O.V. character.

Event Group Adventures; by David Lynn Golemon (series ended/on hold)

Literature.Event Group Adventures (by David L. Golemon)
- Anon's note: I own 1-7 and 10.

Event Group Adventures, or just Event Group, is a series of thrillers by David Lynn Golemon and revolves around "the most secret organization in the United States", dedicated to studying the hidden truths behind the myths and legends propagated throughout world history, from UFOs to Noah's ark to various cryptids and mysterious disappearances. As book 1 begins, the organization is joined by Major Jack Collins, recruited as their new leader, and kicks off a new era in the group's existence.

The series consists of:

#01: Event (2006)
#02: Legend (2007)
#03: Ancients (2008)
#04: Leviathan (2009)
#05: Primeval (2010)
#06: Legacy (2011)
#07: Ripper (2012)
#08: Carpathian (2013)
#09: Overlord (2014)
#10: The Mountain (2015)
#11: The Traveler (2016)
#12: Beyond the Sea (2017)
#13: Empire of the Dragon (2018)
#14: Season of the Witch (2019)

The series contains examples of:

Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Mentioned in book 4, where Jack Collins states that there's no conclusive proof of their existence. One book later, they actually appear, living in Canada, where the local tribe of Tlingit Indians refer to them as the Chulimantan, or "They Who Follow". The creatures have excellent camouflage abilities, tend to send signals by beating on trees with wooden clubs, are attracted to shiny things, and are descended from the prehistoric apes known as Giganticus Pythicus, which followed prehistoric man over the Bering land bridge from Siberia to Alaska.
City of Gold: The backstory of the Event in book 2 involves a search for El Dorado in Brazil.
Did Anastasia Survive?: Book 5, Primeval (released in 2010 — a year after Anastasia's death was confirmed in real life), states that yes, Anastasia and Alexei did indeed escape, with the aid of Russian soldiers loyal to their father (a pair of body doubles were left in their place), and made it to Canada, along with a whole lot of gold and two enormous diamonds (payment to the lead soldier). Most of the soldiers died in the fall of 1918 after attempting to betray their leader (believing the bad luck that had fallen on them was because of a curse on the Romanovs and wanting to kill the two children in order to save their own lives), and Alexei the following March, but Anastasia and the lead soldier not only survived, they married and lived out the rest of their lives in that area, dying of old age in the mid 1950s; they were survived by their daughter. Anastasia's daughter married at some point, but her own child and their spouse died later (one in childbirth, the other a few years later), and by the end of the book, only Anastasia's great-granddaughter remains, content to live out her life in peace and asking the protagonists to keep her ancestry a secret.
Stock Ness Monster:
- Some odd, turtle-shelled plesiosaurs show up in a lagoon in Brazil in book 2.
- According to book 4, the Loch Ness Monster used to be real, but the species went extinct during World War II.
Stock Unsolved Mysteries: Many are covered, including Roswell (which forms an ongoing plotline that serves as the focus of books 1, 6 and 9, with book 11 dealing with the fallout), the fate of Amelia Earhart, the truth about Atlantis (which makes up the plot of book 3) and the truth about the Philadelphia Experiment (in book 12).
Submarine Pirates: (In book 4?)
Whole Episode Flashback: Book 10 is this in more ways than one. Its prologue is set just before book 1, then jumps ahead to just after book 1, and shows main protagonist Jack Collins receiving and starting to read a journal by an ancestor of his that records the very first Event, back before the organization was even founded, in the 1860s. The rest of the book, save for the epilogue, is the events recorded in the journal.

Storm Runner; by Jennifer C. Cervantes (for the Rick Riordan Presents imprint line)

Literature.Storm Runner
- Anon's note: I own book 1.

The Storm Runner trilogy is the second series in the Rick Riordan Presents imprint line, written by Jennifer C. Cervantes and focused on Maya and Aztec mythology. It centers around Zane Obispo, a boy whose adventure begins when he discovers his father is one of the Mayan gods, and that he's destined to release Ah-Puch (pronounced "ah-POOCH"), the Mayan god of death, darkness and destruction and the former ruler of the ninth lowest level of Xib'alb'a (the Mayan underworld) from his prison, which turns out to be only the first of his adventures.

The series consists of:

#1: The Storm Runner (September 18, 2018)
#2: The Fire Keeper (September 3, 2019)
#3: The Shadow Crosser (September 1, 2020)
The Cave of Doom (September 28, 2021; released in The Cursed Carnival and Other Calamities: New Stories About Mythic Heroes)

The Shadow Bruja duology is the thirteenth entry in the Rick Riordan Presents imprint line, a sequel to the Storm Runner trilogy and focused more prominently on Aztec myth. It centers around Renata "Ren" Santiago (daughter of Pacific, the former Mayan goddess of time), who debuted in The Fire Keeper, and consists of:

#1: The Lords of Night (October 4, 2022)
#2: Dawn of the Jaguar (October 10, 2023)

Not to be confused with the similarly titled Storm Runners trilogy by Roland Smith.

This series contains the following tropes:

Animorphism: Brooks is a half-human, half-Nawal, whose mother was a full Nawal, or shapeshifter. Due to this heritage, she's also able to change into an animal, but her human blood limits her to just one species — a hawk, in her case, though she can also vary its size.
Big Eater: In book 1, Zane mentions that his dog Rosie (a Boxer/Dalmatian mix) is one of these, eating as much as an elephant.
Canine Companion: Rosie, a Boxer/Dalmatian mix who's missing one of her front legs, is this for Zane; he found her wandering the desert when he was ten and adopted her, and spends much of the first book seeking to rescue her from the underworld after she sacrifices herself to save him from a demon runner. After becoming a hellhound, she remains Zane's companion,
Divine Parentage: Zane Obispo is a godborn, whose mother is a mortal and whose father is Hurakan, the Mayan god of wind, storms and fire.
Eye Beams: After becoming a hellhound, Boxer/Dalmatian mix Rosie gains the ability to use heat vision.
God of Fire: Hurakan is the Mayan god of wind, storms, and fire. His son Zane has inherited his fire abilities.
Growing Wings: After becoming a hellhound, Rosie is able to grow a pair of bat-like wings and fly while in Xibalba.
Hellhound: During the first book, when Zane's dog Rosie dies and goes to Xibalba, she becomes one of these, having her form altered (including growing in size to twice the size of a lion) and gaining supernatural powers.
Super Mode: At the climax of book 3, Rosie's hellhound form becomes this, as she's granted the ability to change between her original form and her hellhound form.

Trivia:

Tribute to Fido: Jennifer Cervantes based Zane's dog Rosie, a boxer/Dalmatian mix, off her own dog, who passed away about six months after book 1 was released.

Literature.Travis Mc Gee — Main section is already on the site. This is for adding tropes to individual books, as I get around to reading them. Series ended.

General

Ascended Extra: Meyer, believe it or not. He's a background character in the first six books, having been mentioned in passing only for the first time in book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying) and again in book 4 (The Quick Red Fox). He has a minor and very brief role in book 5 (A Deadly Shade of Gold), then appears in flashbacks in book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud). It's not until book 7 (Darker Than Amber) that he has his first major role in aiding Travis with a case, after which he becomes a regular, working with Travis on most of the featured cases throughout the rest of the series (excluding a few books where he only has bit appearances).
Badass Family: Not in MacDonald's novels, but Philip José Farmer included Travis as part of his Wold Newton Family.
Brilliant, but Lazy: Zig-zagged. McGee is legitimately an excellent investigator, but he prefers to slack off on his boat. That said, when he does take a case, he will stop at nothing to finish it.
Cartwright Curse: Travis has this problem, as most of the women he becomes attached to end up dead (as seen in book 1 — The Deep Blue Good-by), pairing with someone else (as seen in book 6 — Deep Orange For the Shroud — where Barbara Jean "Chookie" McCall ultimately ends up with Arthur Wilkinson), or just plain leaving him for their own reasons.
Character Filibuster: McGee usually takes a chapter or two per book to expose on a major societal ill, such as consumerism or environmental destruction.
Chivalrous Pervert: Travis himself. Bitter, but utterly a believer in the healing power of good sex, occasionally waxing highly poetic about it. He admits he sleeps with women to make them feel better; he's quieter about the healing effect it has on him as well, being not inclined to discuss his dark past.
Cool Boat: The Busted Flush, Travis' luxurious houseboat. So named because Travis won it in a poker game. He also has a neat little runabout, the Munequita, for short trips.
Cool Car: Travis drives Miss Agnes, the world's only custom-made hybrid of a Rolls Royce and a pickup truck. An unknown previous owner did the custom work. Travis named the car after one of his elementary-school teachers because the blue paint job reminded him of the color of her hair. The problem with it is that it's too memorable, so he never drives it on a job.
Criminal Procedural: The series includes several adventures in which McGee discovers a con game and plots to take it down with a con of his own.
First-Person Perspective: All the novels are told from Travis' perspective. It edges very close to First-Person Smartass and Private Eye Monologue at times, but the depth that MacDonald's talent gives to Travis as a character keeps it from becoming self-parody.
Hardboiled Detective: Though not a licensed private investigator (he self-describes himself as a "salvage consultant"), Travis is a detective as dogged, streetsmart, and heavy-drinking as the best of them.
Houseboat Hero: The titular character lives on a houseboat called The Busted Flush (he won it in a poker game), parked in Slip F-18, Bahia Mar Marina, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The marina is real (although there hasn't been a Slip F-18 since their last renovation), and maintains a plaque dedicated to the hero and his chronicler. Most of his friends also live on boats in the community, including his very best friend, Meyer.
Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The novels all include a color in the title.
In-Series Nickname: Travis goes by the shortened name "Trav" at times.
Intimate Psychotherapy: Travis almost always ends up providing sexual healing to Damsels in Distress as well as sorting out their material problems.
Just Like Robin Hood: Travis runs his salvage operations on a 50-50 split with the victim: "When a man knows his expectation of recovery is zero, recovering half is very attractive."
Long-Running Book Series: 1964 to 1984, with a total of 21 books.
(checking) Mysterious Middle Initial: Travis's middle initial of "D." is revealed in book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying), but what it stands for isn't ever revealed.
The Nondescript: Travis takes full advantage of his own generally unremarkable appearance in his investigations; his height — 6'5" — is literally the only thing most people remember about him. He occasionally puts lifts in his shoes to make it even harder for them to remember anything else.
Noodle Incident: Travis's narration is occasionally sprinkled with references to people and events from his past, but almost never in detail.
Only One Name: Meyer's real full name is never given; in fact, it's never specified if Meyer is his first, last, middle, or nickname.
Pay Evil unto Evil: McGee goes after the worst of the worst, and, though he's only supposed to get back stolen/defrauded property, he often ends up killing his targets. He is quite aware of this trope and works hard to avert it whenever possible; in almost every case, he kills strictly in self-defense and his narration usually remarks that It Never Gets Any Easier.
Punch-Clock Hero: Travis takes on new cases when he needs the money, and spends the rest of his time taking his retirement "in installments". If you do harm to or take from, or both, one of Travis' friends, though, he will apply his skills and talents to getting payback, and salvage some coin, too, if possible.
Ransacked Room: Travis does this to some of the people he's investigating. He also carefully arranges things in his own quarters to alert him if they've been searched.
Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Frequently combined with Sophisticated as Hell in the dialogue between Travis and Meyer.
Smart People Play Chess: Travis and his Best Friend, the brilliant economist Meyer, often enjoy a game aboard The Busted Flush or on Meyer's equally comfortable boat. Meyer usually wins.
Title Drop: Nearly every book references its title in dialogue or narration; one exception is book 2 (Nightmare in Pink).
We Help the Helpless: Travis himself. He usually gives his profession as 'salvage consultant'. His normal fee is half of the value of whatever he is hired to recover; if the client objects he's quick to remind them that half of the lost property/money is considerably more than none of it. Will occasionally waive the fee entirely For Great Justice.
Yank the Dog's Chain: Pretty much the B-plot of every novel, with the exception of the books where it's the A-plot.

#01: The Deep Blue Good-by (1964) (10+ tropes)

Alliterative Name: Book 1 (The Deep Blue Good-by) involves Travis hunting down Ambrose A. Allen. His nickname of "Junior" subverts it though.
Ankle Drag: In book 1 (The Deep Blue Good-by), this is possibly how Junior Allen dies — it's not clear if the chain attached to the anchor on his boat wrapped around his ankle and dragged him down, or if it just wrapped around him in general, but he is caught in it and dragged to his drowning death.
Attempted Rape: In book 1 (The Deep Blue Good-by), Junior Allen tries this on Patty Devlan. Thanks to Travis's timely interruption, he winds up tossing her aside and off the boat instead.
Blind Without 'Em: In book 1 (The Deep Blue Good-by), Patty Devlan is this trope, which Allen takes advantage of by snatching her glasses off her face and throwing them overboard before trying to force himself on her.
The Casanova: In book 1 (The Deep Blue Good-by), Junior Allen has a habit of seducing, using and abandoning women, usually younger ones.
Interrupted Intimacy: In book 1 (The Deep Blue Good-by), while exploring George Brell's house, Travis goes in what he thinks is an unoccupied room and unwittingly interrupts a makeout session between Brell's daughter Angie and her boyfriend, the latter of whom tries to fight Travis until the rest of the household shows up and hears what happened, prompting Lew to take off so as to avoid getting shot by an angry George.
Intimidating Revenue Service: In book 1 (The Deep Blue Good-by), it's explained that Dave Berry and George Brell picked up some extra cash doing work on the side during World War II, and smuggled it back into the U.S. afterward in the form of gemstones. However, they never reported this extra income, so the government (which suspects they did what they did) has been keeping an eye on Brell to make sure he can't use (or at least profit) off it without having to spend even more money to keep out of trouble; he mentions he sold some of the gemstones, getting forty thousand dollars, and it cost him one hundred thousand to avoid getting convicted for it (and they're still after him every year, to his great distress).
Living Emotional Crutch: In book 1 (The Deep Blue Good-by), Travis becomes one for Lois Atkinson after he finds her and helps her to slowly recover from being used and abandoned by Junior Allen. He remains as such until her death late in the book.
Replaced with Replica: Discussed but subverted in book 1 (The Deep Blue Good-by) — Travis borrows a fake blue gemstone to fool Junior Allen with, and his source thinks he's planning to use it to carry out this trope, but Travis assures him he has other plans in mind (namely, to set things up so Allen thinks he was robbed and check the place where he keeps his valuables, allowing Travis to actually rob him).
Water Torture: In book 1 (The Deep Blue Good-by), after asking normally doesn't work, Travis traps George Brell in the shower and scalds him with the hot water to get him to talk about the money he and Dave Berry earned illegally during World War II.
Wicked Stepmother: In book 1 (The Deep Blue Good-by), Angie Brell thinks of her stepmother as one after having caught her having an unplanned affair.

#02: Nightmare in Pink (1964) ( 8 tropes)

Chemically-Induced Insanity: In book 2 ( Nightmare in Pink), McGee has a hallucinatory drug slipped into his drink. When he loses control, he's taken into custody by the bad guys and sent to a mental hospital so he can be interrogated and lobotomized.
Lobotomy: In book 2 (Nightmare in Pink), McGee is falsely committed to a corrupt mental hospital where the villains plan to lobotomize him to eliminate him as a threat.
Man Bites Man: Early on in book 2 (Nightmare in Pink), Nina Gibson tries, at least, to bite McGee's hand when he's restraining her. She fails.
Not Me This Time: In book 2 (Nightmare in Pink), the lead villain admits to McGee that Howard Plummer, who worked for his organization and was going to report them for tax evasion, was killed in a random mugging before they could have him captured and brought in to be dealt with.
Pipe Pain: In book 2 (Nightmare in Pink), during his escape from the mental hospital where he's being held, McGee swipes a pipe to use as an improvised weapon in case he needs it (and does, a few times).
Pragmatic Villainy: In book 2 (Nightmare in Pink), the lead villain justifies his method of dealing with threats (having them lobotomized rather than killed) by explaining that they don't want to have to cover up a trail of dead bodies, which would be more suspicious.
Self-Disposing Villain: In book 2 (Nightmare in Pink), a lower-ranked member of the organization is Dr. Varn, who would have carried out the lobotomy on McGee. When he's talking to the police after exposing them, it's revealed Varn committed suicide to escape being prosecuted for his part in his employers' schemes.
White-Collar Crime: The villains of book 2 (Nightmare in Pink) use some more violent means on a target, having had him lobotomized and thus easier to manipulate, but it's so they can commit one of these — stealing millions from him, then smuggling it out of the country and into Swiss bank accounts.

#03: A Purple Place for Dying (1964) (10+ tropes)

Entitled to Have You: In book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying), according to Mona Yeoman, her husband Jasper "Jass" Yeoman feels this way about her; she claims he's abused her every possible way except physically or sexually to ensure that she can't leave him. He's also outright said that if she runs away, he'll have her hunted down and dragged back, and that the ones who did it would beat up her desired partner for wife-stealing. Jass himself denies any wrongdoing though.
Faking the Dead: Early in book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying), after Mona Fox Yeoman is murdered via sniper rifle, the police and Mona's abusive husband Jasper "Jass" Yeoman try to convince McGee that she's just doing this so she can run off with her lover. Travis isn't buying it, and sets out to investigate her death, which turns out to have been caused by someone with a grudge against Jass.
The Family That Slays Together: Late in book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying), it comes out that Dolores Canerio Estebar recruited her half-brothers to help her by murdering her father's wife and lover, while she kills her father.
Financial Abuse: Book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying) starts with McGee coming to Arizona and being hired by Mona Fox Yeoman, who claims she's suffering from this; her husband has essentially stolen her father's estate and has since cut off her allowance until she "comes to her senses" (meaning she gives up any attempt at leaving him), while doing his best to block any investigation into the estate's actual worth and fate. Jass himself claims, however, that she spends every cent she gets almost as soon as she gets it, and he's had her on an allowance so she won't burn through the entire estate.
Inheritance Murder: In book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying), Travis eventually learns that Dolores Canerio Estebar is Jasper "Jass" Yeoman's illegitimate daughter, and arranged for the deaths of Mona Yeoman, her lover John Webb, and Mona's husband Jass so she'd inherit Jass's estate, as recompense for Jass raping her.
Interrupted Suicide: In book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying), Isobel Webb attempts an overdose on tranquilizers after getting word of her brother's death. Fortunately, McGee's quick thinking saves her life.
It Was Here, I Swear!: In book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying), after calling the police about Mona Yeoman's murder, Travis leads them back to the site, only to find that all the evidence is gone. The sheriff figures she just faked her own death and set him up, and tells him to leave it alone, but Travis isn't convinced and eventually brings him enough evidence to prove that something strange is going on.
Just One Little Mistake: In book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying), while investigating the missing John Webb (Mona Yeoman's lover), Travis learns he was diabetic and needed insulin shots every morning. However, he didn't take his supplies when he disappeared, which turns out to be key to confirming his disappearance was not his idea.
Lysistrata Gambit: In book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying), Mona claims to have threatened her husband with this unless he does what she wants (namely, let her have her money and a divorce), but that he just laughed it off, and she's certain that's because he's got a lover on the side.
Parental Incest: In book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying), it comes out near the end that a drunken Jass got his illegitimate daughter drunk and raped her, which is why she murdered him.
Patricide: In book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying), Dolores Canerio Estebar is Jasper "Jass" Yeoman's illegitimate daughter, and murders him via strychnine poisoning in revenge for his drunken rape of her.
Rebuff the Amateur: Book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying) has a less amateur and more "out-of-state, non-licensed investigator" example when Sheriff Buckelberry keeps telling Travis to leave the investigation to him. Travis doesn't listen, and after Jass dies, the sheriff winds up subverting the trope and making him a temporary deputy.
Revealing Cover-Up: In book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying), after Travis witnesses Mona Yeoman's death, he brings the police back, but finds that all the evidence has disappeared; furthermore, witness statements have Mona and her lover boarding a plane and running off together. However, enough evidence (traces of flesh from her body at the crime scene, descriptions of the man and woman's appearance and behavior that don't line up with how they really looked and acted, and the timing of when they boarded) turns up to prove that someone's trying to cover up their deaths.
The Runaway: Invoked in book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying) — according to the police, Mona Yeoman and her lover boarded a plane and ran off together, but Travis quickly discovers that this happened before Mona picked up Travis at the airport (and was subsequently murdered), and witness accounts of the couple don't match their normal appearance or behavior. Travis rightly sees this as further proof that something suspicious is going on, and eventually proves that they were indeed murdered, with the "runaways" being impostors hired by the real killers.
Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: In book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying), according to his wife Mona, Jasper "Jass" Yeoman has threatened that if she runs away, he'll use his connections to have her dragged back and the man she's in love with beaten, and that if she ever successfully gets a divorce, he'll use his influence to have that man fired from his job. Jass himself denies this, saying she's just trying to get attention.
Tampering with Food and Drink: Later on in book 3 (A Purple Place for Dying), Jass Yeoman dies when someone slips strychnine into his coffee.

#04: The Quick Red Fox (1964) (10+ tropes)

Alliterative Name: Book 4 (The Quick Red Fox) features two characters with names like this — Alexander Armitage Abbott, and his son Alex Abbott.
The Beard: In book 4 (The Quick Red Fox), while investigating the other people involved in the incident that Lysa Dean is being blackmailed over, Travis learns that two others present — Vance and Patty M'Gruder — had another of the group, Nancy Abbott, as a guest, and that it's believed (and later indicated to be accurate) that Patty married Vance under false pretenses, using him as a Beard (unbeknownst to Vance himself until later) while actually sleeping with Nancy. Confirming this prompted Vance to have their marriage annulled.
Blackmail: The plot of book 4 (The Quick Red Fox) revolves around Lee Schontz / Lysa Dean hiring Travis to identify the person blackmailing her over some sexually explicit photos of her and other people, when she'd already paid them off once before. Travis finds that the first blackmailer was Vance M'Gruder, who was also present at the time the photos were taken, and the second was an associate of the photographer who found backups of the photos, made poor copies of them and used them to try and blackmail her again.
Blackmail Backfire: Happens to both blackmailers in book 4 (The Quick Red Fox).
- D. C. Ives took photos on behalf of Vance M'Gruder for blackmail purposes (turns out Vance is the one who'd first blackmailed Travis's client Lysa), but later tries to blackmail M'Gruder with some of those same photos, which would ruin his chances of getting remarried. Ulka Atlund, Vance M'Gruder's new wife, turns out to be crazy and proceeds to murder Ives, along with M'Gruder's ex-wife (who also knew what he was up to), and then M'Gruder himself after he figures out what she'd done.
- The book ends shortly after the second blackmailer is caught in a sting operation, with all his photos and negatives taken and destroyed before he's handed over to the police for his crimes.
Disinherited Child: It's mentioned in passing in book 4 (The Quick Red Fox) that Nancy Abbott is getting nothing from her father's estate because of her mental issues.
Ethical Slut: In book 4 (The Quick Red Fox), according to her personal assistant, Lysa Dean is this — promiscuous, but with standards, and a bisexual orgy (which she's being blackmailed over) is not her style.
Hates Being Nicknamed: In book 4 (The Quick Red Fox), Ulka Atlund reacts poorly to those who call her "Ullie".
Lost Him in a Card Game: Travis mentions in narration early on in book 4 (The Quick Red Fox) that after he won his houseboat in a card game, the man who lost it tried to wager his Brazilian mistress in order to win back the boat. Luckily, his friends persuaded him to leave the game instead.
Mighty Roar: Subverted in book 4 (The Quick Red Fox) — while joking around (as part of their cover), Dana claims that Travis snores so loud that the neighbors heard it and mistook it for one of these, running out of their home while screaming "Lion! Lion!".
Mistaken for Murderer: In book 4 (The Quick Red Fox), Dana Holtzer admits to Travis, when they start working together, that she has a husband who's comatose in the hospital after an off-duty cop mistook one of his epileptic seizures for a murderous attack on her and shot him in the head.
One Degree of Separation: In book 4 (The Quick Red Fox), it's a little more remote (closer to the "six degrees" version), but the trope is discussed and used by Travis and Dana to establish a connection with the people Vance and Ulka M'Gruder are staying with, to give them an excuse to get close to Vance and question him relating to the blackmail he was involved in.
Self-Disposing Villain: In book 4 (The Quick Red Fox), Ulka Atlund, Vance M'Gruder's new wife (and his killer, who also killed his blackmailer and his ex-wife, who could have exposed as being behind the original blackmail effort) runs off in her car, tries to drive around a roadblock at speed and skids off the road, crashing down the side of a hill to her death.
Trust Password: Book 4 (The Quick Red Fox) reveals that Travis has an "identification tag" that his old friend Walter Lowery is supposed to give to people whom he sends Travis's way, as proof that he indeed sent them — that "he misses playing chess with you". When he hears this from Dana Holtzer, it's what convinces him to hear her out.

#05: A Deadly Shade of Gold (1965) ( 7 tropes)

Evil Stole My Faith: In book 5 (A Deadly Shade of Gold), Nora admits that she lost most of her faith because her prayers, for her brother's pain to end (by death or otherwise from the cancer he was suffering from), were not answered.
Impromptu Tracheotomy: In book 5 (A Deadly Shade of Gold), not long before she and Travis intend to leave Mexico, Nora Garcia dies when a boat explodes and sends a shard of railing through her throat.
Man Bites Man: In book 5 (A Deadly Shade of Gold), while in Mexico, Travis meets a woman, Felicia, and goes to her room to question her about Sam Taggert. She promptly (and out of instinct, thinking he's like the men who tried to question her before) attacks him like a madman, including biting him on the forearm, badly enough that he has to actually medicate and bandage it afterward while she's unconscious. When she wakes up again, she promptly tries to bite him a second time, until he proves he's one of the good guys.
Screams Like a Little Girl: Not played for laughs in Almah Hichin's story in book 5 (A Deadly Shade of Gold), where she says she thought she heard a woman scream, only to find it was her host Carlos Menterez, who'd just had a stroke.
Secular Hero: In book 5 (A Deadly Shade of Gold), when the topic is discussed, Travis notes that he does believe that there's a divine order to the universe, but isn't one for organized religion himself.
"But to me, organized religion, the formalities and routines, it's like being marched in formation to look at a sunset. I don't knock it for other people. Maybe they need routines, rules, examples, taboos, object lessons, sermonizing. I don't."
Slashed Throat: In book 5 (A Deadly Shade of Gold), Almah Hichin dies when someone cuts her throat from behind shortly before the boat explosion that kills Nora Garcia.
Verbal Tic: In book 5 (A Deadly Shade of Gold), when Travis is dealing with a travel agent on Los Angeles, the man speaks with a random, very loud emphasis on some words.

#06: Bright Orange for the Shroud (1965) (10+ tropes)

Asshole Victim: In book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud), Wilma Ferner tricked Arthur Wilkinson (and ten others before him) into marriage as part of a con, and is later suspected and ultimately confirmed to have died at the hands of her fellow con artist Boo Waxwell, after which he claimed her share of the money they conned out of Arthur.
The Con: In book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud), Arthur Wilkinson gets targeted and caught up in one involving a phony land deal (on real land) that's arranged for the sole purpose of cheating he and some others out of their savings.
Domestic Abuse: In book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud), Arthur Wilkinson's wife married him as part of an elaborate scam to defraud him of all his money; she helped her partners in the scam by verbal abuse combined with the Lysistrata Gambit in order to push him into the investments they wanted him to make.
Driven to Suicide: Book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud) reveals that Travis had a brother who committed suicide after being scammed out of his savings by a woman and her male accomplice, and that he'd killed both.
Framing the Guilty Party: In book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud), Travis frames Boo Waxwell for the murder-suicide of Crane Watts and his wife — which Boo had initiated by raping her.
Gilligan Cut: Chapter 2 of book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud) ends with Travis asking Chookie McCall to come back to his houseboat and looking in on Arthur Wilkinson and Chookie saying "Trav, I wouldn't go anywhere near Arthur." The next chapter starts with the line "When I got back to the Busted Flush with Chook,".
Given Name Reveal: In book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud), while she and Travis are meeting with Calvin Stebber, Chookie reveals her actual name is Barbara Jean McCall.
The Heavy: Book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud) features a syndicate of con artists who use a phony land deal to cheat their targets out of their savings. However, the active villain throughout most of the book is the syndicate's muscle and most physically dangerous of the group, Boone "little ol' Boo" Waxwell — a Florida local who's also a murderer and rapist who hides his sadism with a façade of Good Old Boy charm.
Hidden Weapons: In book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud), Boo Waxwell has a concealed knife in his belt, with the buckle as its hilt, which he tries to use on McGee the first time they meet. McGee outwits him and avoids being hit by it though.
Impairment Shot: In book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud), Travis suffers from double vision after Boo shoots him while trying to catch Boo at the Watts' home and injures the side of his head.
Marrying the Mark: In book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud), Arthur Wilkinson's wife, Wilma Ferner, is revealed to have married him as part of a con to defraud him of all of his money. And it's not the first time she and her associates have pulled this.
Murder-Suicide: Late in book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud), Vivian Watts, unable to cope with what's happened to her, shoots her drunken husband in the head and herself in the heart after she's raped by Boo Waxwell.
Outliving One's Offspring: At one point in book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud), McGee questions a woman, Mildred Mooney, and learns she had three children who all died in infancy.
Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: In book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud), Travis — who deals with worst of humanity as part of his livelihood — experiences the deepest possible repulsion listening to Boone Waxwell raping Vivian Watts.
Self-Disposing Villain: In the climax of book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud), Boo Waxwell has been trying to kill Travis, Chook and Arthur, but decides to try and escape them after they fight back and he realizes they're too much for him... and dies when he jumps in the water and accidentally impales himself on a dead mangrove root.
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: In book 6 (Bright Orange for the Shroud), it's shown that Chookie gets jumpy around thunderstorms.

#07: Darker than Amber (1966) (10+ tropes)

Accidental Murder: In book 7 (Darker than Amber), while he shoots Griff with intent to injure only, Travis's aim is off, and as a result he severs an artery in the man's lung, killing him.
Car Fu: In book 7 (Darker than Amber), fter the first attempt to kill Evangeline "Vangie" Bellemer fails, the culprits succeed in doing so a second time via a hit-and-run job.
Cement Shoes: The plot of book 7 (Darker than Amber) kicks off when Travis and Meyer see a woman being thrown off a bridge, having been tied to a cement block with heavy wire, and Travis leaps in to save her. It's later revealed that this was the gang's preferred method of disposing of the victims of their cons.
Cranial Eruption: Downplayed in book 7 (Darker than Amber) — at one point, Travis ends up with a knot on his head (that he can feel, but not see) from standing up too fast and slamming into the roof of Meyer's boat.
Criminal Procedural: Book 7 (Darker than Amber) has McGee discover a con game and plot to take it down with a con of his own; the book shows, in particularly impressive and plausible detail, both how the innocent victims got taken and how Travis and his best friend and accomplice Meyer work the big con on the con men.
Dead Person Impersonation: In book 7 (Darker than Amber), as part of the con to bring down Vangie's killers, Travis finds a woman who can serve as a body double and make it look like Vangie is still alive, causing the man who sees her to go berserk and make a scene that gets him taken into custody.
Domestic Abuse: In book 7 (Darker than Amber), immediately prior to the opening of the story, McGee had been helping a woman — an old friend of his named Virginia, or Vidge for short — get back on her feet after escaping from an emotionally (though not physically) abusive marriage.
Goodbye, Cruel World!: In book 7 (Darker than Amber), during his con, Travis has Adele "Del" Whitney (real name Jane Adele Stussland) write a fake suicide note (to be mailed to the police) that makes it look like she chose to kill herself rather than stay involved in her colleagues' plans, along with confessing everything she knew (which is part of Travis's planned setup to get her arrested along with the rest of the gang).
He Knows Too Much: In book 7 (Darker than Amber), Evangeline "Vangie" Bellemer is dumped in the river in an attempt to kill her when her colleagues find she'd gotten cold feet and tried to warn off one of their intended victims. When they find she survived, they go after her again, and this time succeed.
Mid-Suicide Regret: In book 7 (Darker than Amber), after having sent a letter to the police claiming (falsely) that she was going to kill herself after confessing to all their crimes, Del Whitney contacts them again and says she changed her mind, and was willing to talk. She doesn't realize they're planning to arrest her for her part in the gang's crimes.
Never Suicide: Attempted in book 7 (Darker than Amber) — after Travis retrieves Vangie's hidden stash of money, he's confronted by her former colleague Walter "Griff" Griffin, who forces Travis to drive to a beach and then plans to shoot him and make it look like a suicide. Travis thwarts this when, after laying down on the ground like he was told, he promptly whips out his own hidden gun and shoots Griff.
Pants-Positive Safety: In book 7 (Darker than Amber), Travis mentions that he has a pair of pants with a spring-release holster hidden in the right front pocket, designed by a Cuban woman for him.
Revealing Cover Up: In book 7 (Darker than Amber), Evangeline "Vangie" Bellemer is dumped in the river when her colleagues discover she tried to warn one of the victims of their con game; this attempt to silence her gets Travis and Meyers involved when they witness the attempted murder.
Sherlock Scan: In book 7 (Darker than Amber), Meyer demonstrates his use of the technique to identify Evangeline "Vangie" Bellemer's heritage and, after revisiting the spot, to determine the direction that the car that dumped her was coming from.
Til Murder Do Us Part: One incident mentioned in book 7 (Darker than Amber) is a case where Travis was hired to protect a woman whose husband, a Seattle cop, tried to have her killed before his power of attorney over her ran out.

#08: One Fearful Yellow Eye (1966) (10+ tropes)

Accent Relapse: Inverted in book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye) — Anna Ottlo has worked hard for years to be able to shed her thick German accent, as revealed during the final confrontation, when she starts speaking perfect English.
Attempted Rape: In book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), when Travis is finally able to get Susan Kemmer to talk, she admits (among other things) that after her mother took off (and is later confirmed to have been killed), her stepfather tried to force himself on her, to make her take Gretchen's place, but she fought him off, resulting in him beating her badly instead.
Blackmail: In book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), according to the lawyer, there was a clumsy attempt at blackmailing Fortner Geis three years before the present day, around the time he and Glory married. Glory explains later that in a weak moment during the time his first wife was dying, he had an affair with the daughter of his housekeeper and got her pregnant, after which he agreed to pay her a sum every year to help her out. Years later, she tried to blackmail him into increasing her settlement, and he responded by instead speaking to their daughter, arranging for her to call him for help if they really needed it.
The Con: In book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), this is what the villains were up to — they tricked Dr. Geis so they could steal his money.
Continuity Nod: The incident where Travis was drugged with LSD in book 2 (Nightmare In Pink) gets referenced in book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), and Travis still shudders at the memory.
Don't Split Us Up: In book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), part of the reason Susan was reluctant to go to the authorities for help after her near-rape was because she was afraid she'd lose her siblings as a result.
Dramatic Shattering: Played for Laughs in book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), where as a way of helping Heidi Geis Trumbill and her business partner, Travis sneakily causes a client at their gallery to fall on and break the hollow sculpture of two dogs mating that he's trying to have them display. The client is most distressed afterward and leaves sadly; however, the others all laugh so hard that they cry after he goes.
Give Me Back My Wallet: A variant in book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), where Travis is at a hotel and stops "Cinny Lee" from swiping a different man's wallet after she knocked him out via slipping chloral hydrate into his drink.
Happily Failed Suicide: In book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), in Gloria's backstory, shortly after her husband murdered their children and then killed himself, Gloria wandered about, emotionally lost. After eventually finding a place to stay and then getting kicked out when she couldn't pay up, she went down to the beach, trying to build up the energy to walk out to sea and drown, where Travis found her and helped her put her life back together, eventually seeing her married to another man.
I Need a Freaking Drink: In the last chapter of book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), after seeing Gloria force Travis to take a share of the money he recovered, lawyer John Andrus doesn't use the phrase outright... but announces that at this point, he's going to just take the rest of the money to the bank, and then go sit in a bar.
Kick the Dog: In book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), during a conversation with Fort's former lover and college Janice Stanyard, Travis learns that she once came home to find one of her cats murdered. It later turns out that Saul Gorba did it, on Anna Ottlo's orders, for no real reason other than to torment her.
Living Emotional Crutch: Discussed a few times in book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye).
- It's explained at one point that Travis became one for Gloria "Glory" Doyle after he found her and saved her from suicide. Eventually though, he detached himself from her by finding her help.
- In the last chapter, Heidi Geis Trumbill recognizes that Travis is becoming this for her, and so she needs to leave and get back on her feet so she can live her own life.
Make It Look Like an Accident: In the climax of book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), this is how the villains plan to kill Travis and Heidi, drowning them in a basin of salt water and then leaving the bodies in a place where it looks like they washed ashore.
May–December Romance: According to Gloria's backstory in book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), she married Fortner Geis, her second husband, when he was fifty and she was twenty-nine, and with the full knowledge that he only had a few years left.
Murder-Suicide: In Gloria's backstory in book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), after she left her first husband Karl Doyle and told him to see a psychiatrist for his possessiveness and other issues, he responded by tracking down the friend she and their kids were staying with; having found Gloria wasn't there (she was out buying groceries), he proceeded to murder both their children and the owner of the house before shooting himself.
Non-Protagonist Resolver: In the climax of book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), after Travis kills Anna Ottlo, he's confronted by her partner Perry (an alias of Wilhelm Vogel), who's promptly shot in the back of the head by a couple of investigators who were searching for the pair to bring them to justice for their crimes in Nazi Germany.
Offing the Offspring: In Gloria's backstory in book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), her first husband Karl Doyle always resented their two children for taking any of her attention away from him. Eventually, when she took the kids and left, telling him that she'd only come back if he got counseling, he tracked them down at the place where they were staying and shot both children, their host, and himself.
Paralyzing Fear of Sexuality: In book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), Heidi eventually realizes, with Travis's help, that she lost her ability to be interested in sex after seeing her father in bed with Gretchen. She's still attracted to men, just not physically, and in the last chapter it's revealed she's getting counseling for the trauma she's been put through that resulted in this condition (and more recently as well).
Ransacked Room: In book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), when Travis goes by the farm where Saul Gorba and his family have been hiding out, he finds their car torn apart, the kitchen ransacked, and Saul's dead body strapped to the wall of a nearby shed.
Secret Identity: The climax of book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye) reveals that the villain of the book, Anna Ottlo, is actually a Nazi war criminal — Fredrika Gronwald. Along with her associate Wilhelm Vogel, they arranged for Fredrika to pose as the real Anna Ottlo, then took her daughter Gretchen, who fell for the impersonation, and came to America with her.
Slipping a Mickey: In book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), Travis is at a hotel and realizes one "Cinny Lee", a woman with a fake accent, had slipped chloral hydrate into her target's drink, then tried to sneak off with his wallet (and Travis figures she planned to just plain rob him and then, when he woke up, pretend someone else robbed them both while they were asleep). He thwarts this plan, much to her irritation.
Suicide by Sea: Attempted in book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye) — Travis first meets Gloria when she's on the beach, trying to build up the energy to walk out to sea and drown. He ends up saving her from doing so.
Tampering with Food and Drink: A few times in book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye).
- When Travis questions Heidi's ex-husband, he learns about an incident where her box of chocolate-covered cherries was tampered with so one of them had Tabasco sauce inside instead of a cherry. Anna Ottlo later admits to having done it, for no real reason.
- At one point, Gloria overdoses on LSD-25, and Travis has to fight her down and restrain her because it's driven her to madness. She lives, fortunately, and Travis later finds that Anna Ottlo slipped it into her orange juice, for the sole purpose of watching her reaction while on it.
The Unsmile: In book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), on his way back to his hotel room after meeting with Janice Stanyard, Travis tries to smile and cheer himself up, but it just ends up a disturbing one that scares another woman who's waiting for the elevator.
Use Your Head: During the final confrontation in book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), Travis manages to headbutt his captor in the stomach while still tied to a chair. It sends Anna falling backwards and to her death, as her collision with the wall leads to a plate-glass window falling out and striking her on the neck, killing her.
Wicked Stepmother: In book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye), Fortner Geis's lawyer tells Travis that Heidi Geis Trumbill was rather convinced that her stepmother Gloria was this, trying to claim she was responsible for the murder of her first family and had used hypnosis to manipulate Fort into marrying her, then converting all his holdings into cash and hiding it away, all so she'd get everything and his kids would get nothing. It's a load of nonsense, of course.

#09: Pale Gray for Guilt (1968) (10+ tropes)

Accidental Murder: Two in book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt).
- During his final confrontation with Travis, Deputy Hazzard admits to hitting a woman he was trying to arrest a little harder than he planned, and she died when she fell forward onto the tines of a poorly positioned rake.
- During the same talk, he admits that Tush Bannon's death was also an accident, as he mistakenly hit him in the face in the wrong spot and drove a couple of bones in his nose back into his brain, with fatal results.
Burial at Sea: In the last chapter or two of book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt), after Deputy Hazzard's death, Travis and Janine wrap his body up and dump him out at sea.
Career-Ending Injury: As noted in book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt), Tush Bannon used to play football professionally, until a pinched nerve in his neck forced him to retire.
Clear My Name: Part of book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt) involves Travis having to clear his name when he's arrested by the Shawana County sheriff, Hadley "Bunny" Burgoon, as a suspect in Tush Bannon's murder. It turns out the witness gave an accurate description of the murder, but identified Travis as the killer rather than the real culprit, and then followed it up with some falsehoods about the last time he'd visited the area, on orders from the actual killer.
The Con: In book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt), Travis and Meyer pull this off masterfully, twice. First on the smaller but more directly involved villain, whom they convince that Meyer is a Corrupt Corporate Executive who will take a bribe to make a deal for his company's business; then, on the bigger but more distant villain, who they entice with an apparent can't miss insider trading deal.
Criminal Procedural: Book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt) has McGee discover a con game and plot to take it down with a con of his own; the book shows, in particularly impressive and plausible detail, both how the innocent victims got taken and how Travis and his best friend and accomplice Meyer work the big con on the con men.
Crusading Widow: In book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt), Deputy Hazzard pays the ultimate price for his crimes — not at Travis' hands, but those of Janine Bannon, widow of the murdered Tush, when he comes after she and Travis on Travis's houseboat to try and use it to flee the country.
"Dear John" Letter: At the end of book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt), Puss Killian sends one to Travis explaining her background and why she chose to leave him.
Driven to Suicide: Subverted in book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt) — Travis is told that Tush Bannon killed himself after he went broke and was evicted from his property. He's suspicious though, and soon proves it was actually murder.
Gosh Dang It to Heck!: In-Universe in book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt), where Travis notes that Tush Bannon doesn't like to swear when remembering how he got his nickname — he was upset and yelled "Oh ... TUSH!" after he was tackled during a football game.
Impromptu Tracheotomy: Late in book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt), Deputy Hazzard admits that when he was trying to arrest a woman and she resisted, he hit her a little harder than planned... and she fell forward and died when her neck was impaled on the tines of a poorly positioned rake, causing her to bleed out before he could do anything to help her.
Improvised Weapon: In book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt), Janine Bannon avenges her husband's murder when she bashes his killer, Deputy Freddy Hazzard, over the head with a fire extinguisher.
In-Series Nickname:
- In book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt), Brantley Breckenridge Brannon started going by "Tush" after an improvised swear he let out during a football game.
- In the same book, it's revealed that Preston LaFrance goes by "Press", as he admits.
Just Like Robin Hood: Averted for once in book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt) — it's only his friend Meyer's intervention that saves McGee from ruining his "professional standing" with an "unadulterated, unselfish, unrewarded effort in behalf of even the grieving widow of an old and true friend."
Lawman Gone Bad: Book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt) features Freddy Hazzard, former deputy of the Shawana County Sheriff's Department, who was a straight arrow cop but just a little too handy with a blackjack. The latter trait cost Tush Bannon his life, which brought Travis McGee into said county with a thirst for justice, and things go very much more wrong from there for the deputy.
Never Suicide: In book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt), Tush Bannon is beaten to death, and the killer set things up to make it look like he committed suicide via dropping a boat's engine block on his own head (though the coroner rules it an accident, since there was no suicide note and no witnesses). Travis's mission is subsequently to identify Tush's killer and prove it was murder.
Went to the Great X in the Sky: In book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt), when Travis is upset over Tush Bannon's death, Puss Killian says it's understandable — "You really took it hard. Your dear old buddy has gone to the big marina in the sky."

#10: The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper (1968) (10+ tropes)

Blackmail: The villains of book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper) are both guilty of this, one having blackmailed a local doctor over the man's murder of his shrewish wife, the other blackmailing another doctor who's been having a homosexual affair with his tennis partner to keep him from going to the cops if he found anything that could prove a crime had been committed. And then he tries to blackmail his partner, which backfires fatally.
Blackmail Backfire: In the climax of book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), Tom Pike tries to blackmail Dave Broon to keep him quiet about their scheme. End result, Broon snaps and murders Pike.
Continuity Nod: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), during a flashback to the time Travis was with Helena Pearson, he references Lois Atkinson and her death in book 1 (The Deep Blue Good-by).
Dead Man Writing: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), on September 28, Helena Pearson writes a letter to Travis. By the time he gets it in October, she's already dead from a failed cancer surgery.
Destination Defenestration: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), while at his motel and shortly after learning that Maureen Pike has disappeared and her husband and sister are out searching for her, Travis briefly considers that she might try to throw herself out a window, since it's about the only suicide method she hasn't gone for yet. Later, shortly after Travis finds evidence that someone was giving Maureen Pike injections that messed with her memory, he discovers her body, having been thrown out a twelfth-story window to her death.
Dirty Cop: Book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper) features Dave Broon, whose name keeps coming up in the investigation, up to his threatening one of Dr. Sherman's assistants not to talk to anyone about thinking he was murdered instead of killing himself, and taking some piece of evidence away from the office. He's also a blackmailer and a willing participant in Tom Pike's scheme to get his hands on his dying mother-in-law's money.
The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), during her final letter to Travis, Helena Pearson (by then Helena Trescott) refers to her illness (which is clearly cancer, based on the context, and outright confirmed as bowel cancer late in the book) as "the big C".
Domestic Abuse: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), the local doctor, Stewart Sherman, suffered terrible verbal abuse from his wife Joan for many years, and was being blackmailed by Tom Broon because he figured out that Stewart had finally had enough and murdered her three years before the story starts.
Driven to Suicide: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), it's widely believed that Dr. Stewart Sherman killed himself, and Officer Stanger theorizes that he did it out of guilt after his wife's death (which he believes, correctly, that the doctor was responsible for) three years before. It's actually murder to cover up his part in another crime he was made to commit on behalf of the killer.
Filching Food for Fun: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), when Travis is coming back to his motel room, he finds that one of the maids had found and helped herself to a bottle of gin he'd left in the closet — it backfires on her because she didn't know the doctored bottle that Penny Woertz had used to try and drug Travis with a few days before, and she passes out from drinking it as a result. Travis then has to get another maid to help sneak the first one out so she can sleep it off without getting in trouble.
I Warned You: A rather rude variant in book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper) — Helena Pearson's family never approved of her marriage to her husband Michael, thinking he was too old for her and wasn't suitable for settling down with... and when he was killed in a robbery after twenty-one years of marriage and two daughters with her, one of them had the gall to tell her "I told you so".
Impromptu Tracheotomy: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), Penny Woertz is killed in the way via a pair of garden shears stabbed into her throat.
Insecure Love Interest: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), Richard Hilton's wife tells Travis that she thinks her husband feels unworthy of being loved by anyone, and can't believe that anyone would really love him, so he sabotages his own relationships.
Interrupted Suicide: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), when Helena Pearson writes to Travis, part of the reason is because her daughter Maureen has tried to kill herself but been stopped at least three times already (via an overdose, cutting her wrists, and a noose she set up but didn't get to try and use before being caught) since her second miscarriage, and wants Travis to try and keep her from doing so again. The trope is later subverted with the reveal that they were only made to look like suicide attempts, setting things up so her eventual murder would look like a suicide attempt that finally succeeded.
Laser-Guided Amnesia: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), on a hunch, Travis talks to a doctor he knows and learns about a chemical, puromycin, that can wipe out recently-gained memories in humans and animals. Soon after, he finds evidence that Maureen Pike was being injected with it, explaining why her mind's been going.
Massive Numbered Siblings: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), according to Penny during her conversation with Travis, she has six brothers and no sisters; she also notes that because of this, "I've never been able to really be a girl-girl, luncheons and girl talk and all that."
Offing the Offspring: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), it's revealed that Tom Pike arranges the abortion of his own child so they wouldn't get in the way of his claiming his mother-in-law's money when she died.
Medication Tampering: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), Lieutenant Stanger thinks (though it's never confirmed) that if Dr. Sherman killed his wife, this is how he did it — by switching out her insulin for distilled water, so she didn't get her medicine on schedule.
Never Suicide: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), part of the reason Rick and Penny got involved in investigating the death of Penny's boss — a local doctor, Stewart Sherman — is because it was dismissed as a suicide, when the evidence didn't fit. They turn out to be right.
Rebuff the Amateur: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), after Rick and Penny explain everything about why they tried to drug and then investigate Travis, he tells them how stupid they were and that if they'd tried it on someone who was really up to no good, they'd probably be dead by now.
Saying Too Much: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), while thinking about his meeting with Janice Holton, Travis realizes that she knew he was from Fort Lauderdale without him mentioning it, and gets suspicious as a result. He eventually figures out who must have told her about him — her lover, Tom Pike (the husband of Maureen Pike, whom Travis is in town to help), which ultimately helps Travis figure out that said person is one of the killers he's after.
Similar Item Confusion: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), Lieutenant Stanger theorizes that Dr. Sherman killed his wife by switching out her insulin for distilled water, which looks just the same, so she wouldn't notice the swap until it was too late. It's never confirmed though.
Slipping a Mickey: In book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper), while at the motel cocktail lounge, Travis meets and has a couple of drinks with a woman named Penny Woertz. After they leave for another room though, he quickly determines that the next drink she offers him was tampered with and takes steps to neutralize it, then fakes passing out anyway. When her accomplice Rick Holton arrives and they start going through his pockets, Travis "revives" and fights back.
Undercover Cop Reveal: Book 10 (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper) features an "Honorary sheriff" reveal when Travis fights back against Rick and Penny, the latter of whom tried to drug him. It comes out in the process that Rick is actually an Attorney at Large and honorary sheriff in their county, and they tried to drug Travis because they know a tall man was apparently involved in a murder and some related activities; when they saw Travis, who is also tall, visiting the same man that their suspect had been seen with, they mistook him for that suspect and tried to waylay him in such a way that they could find proof.

#11: Dress Her in Indigo (1969) (10+ tropes)

Addiction Displacement: Not portrayed positively at all in book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo). During the climax, Eva Vitrier explains that she'd done this with Bix Bowie, getting her off the heroin and other drugs she was on and substituting them with a drug called charas (similar to marijuana), which she smokes three times a day.
Closet Gay: In book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo), Travis is told that Eva Vitrier has had many affairs with younger girls. Eva herself, however, denies this, claiming that she just rehabilitates and trains disadvantaged young girls. Travis isn't buying it, and later catches her in bed with a girl — the very same girl whose death he's been investigating.
Cranial Eruption: In book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo), Meyer gets a nasty one courtesy of Wally McLeen when he and Travis confront the man over his part in the deaths of a number of people.
Death Faked for You: Book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo) has this happen to Beatrice "Bix" Bowie, who was reported dead, when it was in fact her friend Minda McLeen who was murdered and made to look like Bix. Travis ultimately exposes this and returns Bix to her father.
Failure Is the Only Option: In book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo), after clearing up a kidnapping job in which nobody — the kidnapper, the kidnappee, the kidnappee's family — walked away happy with what they got, Travis grouses that they all would have been happier had he never done anything. Meyer responds with the following lines:
"A grown-up man must make a lousy decision from time to time, knowing it is lousy, because the only other choice is lousy in another dimension, and no matter which way he jumps, he will not like it. So he accepts the fact that the fates dealt him two low cards, and he goes on from there."
In the Back: In book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo), while Travis is investigating, he's led to a crime scene already being investigated by the police, with three dead bodies, all killed via a blow to the head. Only one of them fits the trope though — Della Davis, who was struck and killed from behind.
Karmic Death: In book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo), Wally McLeen is revealed to have been responsible for a handful of deaths, but dies himself via a Staircase Tumble while trying to chase after and kill Travis and Meyer after he learns they've figured out about his crimes.
Karma Houdini: Ultimately, in book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo), the book's villain is last seen Bound and Gagged, but never arrested for her crimes.
Language Barrier: It's downplayed in book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo), but still enough to cause a bit of trouble for Travis in one scene, when he's talking to a twelve-year-old Mexican boy who has to speak slowly, loudly and repeatedly until Travis is able to understand it. He still doesn't understand what the kid is saying when the boy tells him about some people who drove away in a "heap-di-row", until a few days later when, after hearing something similar, he realizes the boy meant "Jeep de color rojo", or "a red Jeep" (since in Spanish, "J" is pronounced as "H"). This provides him with an important clue and leads him to someone else who can provide him with information.
Outliving One's Offspring: The plot of book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo) kicks off when T. Harlan "Harl" Bowie has hired Travis and Meyer to go to Mexico and learn what his daughter, Beatrice "Trix" Tracy Bowie was involved in during her last days, before her death. Subverted when it turns out she's Faking the Dead, but played straight in that it was Minda McLean who died in her place, and was survived by her father for a short while until his own death during the book.
Relationship Sabotage: In the climax of book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo), Eva Vitrier admits that one of the girls who was staying with her discovered Eva was having a lesbian relationship with the other girl, and tried to break them up via contacting her friend's father and having him come down to get her. It's justified in her case, as the relationship was very unhealthy (though if Eva is to be believed, the girl who tried to break them up only did so because they were the same gender). Eva, unwilling to give up her lover, pays a man to kill Minda in retaliation.
Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: During the climax of book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo), Eva tries to bribe Travis with two hundred thousand dollars to go away and not tell anyone what she's been up to. Travis, who has standards, responds with a chop to the neck that knocks her out.
Staircase Tumble: In book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo), Wally McLeen dies when he tries to run away from Travis and Meyer and trips on the stairs, falling down and hitting his head hard enough to kill him.
Tap on the Head: In the climax of book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo), Travis uses the "chop to the neck" version to knock out Eva Vitrier after she tries to bribe him to go away and never tell anyone about her crimes.
Trauma Conga Line: Happens to T. Harlan Bowie in the lead-up to the beginning of book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo), as first his wife Liz develops a brain tumor that kills her five months later, with her badly deteriorating the whole time. Then he suffers an accident that leaves him paralyzed from the waist down, and finally, while recovering from that, he gets a call saying that his daughter has died in a car accident in Mexico. Sure, he discovers that some of his stock options have come through and will now pay out enough for him to live on the rest of his life... but compared to losing his wife, his daughter and his mobility, that's nowhere near worth enough to make up for it. He ultimately gets Bix back in body, but not the Bix he knew, as she's still in rough shape and just wants to go back to Eva.
Unequal Pairing: In book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo), Travis is told, and eventually confirms, that the older woman (though her exact age isn't said) Eva Vitrier has had many affairs with teenage or college-age girls. While it's uncertain how unequal her past lovers were, the relationship with Bix Bowie is very unequal, as the girl had gotten hooked on drugs; Eva helped her via Addiction Displacement and seduced her, ultimately treating her more like a pet than a person — caring for her, but not helping her completely break her addiction or willing to let her reconnect with her old life, as she feels it'll just bring Bix back to her old badly worn-out self.
Would Hit a Girl: Travis certainly would, if he needed to defend himself. This includes in the climax of book 11 (Dress Her in Indigo), when he gets in a fight with Eva Vitrier after he catches her in bed with the supposedly dead Bix Bowie.

#12: The Long Lavender Look (1970) (10+ tropes)

Accidental Murder: In book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), it's mentioned that Travis's lawyer once got an acquittal for a man who did this, having unwittingly shot his insomniac wife when he mistook her for a prowler.
Blackmail: In book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), while investigating Lew Arnstead's actions, Travis learns that he did this to Dori Severiss — she has sex with him, and in return he won't turn her in for robbing her employer (out of desperation for money to pay bills she couldn't afford). Then he talks her into sleeping with a friend of his, threatening to send photos and a copy of her confession to her husband if she doesn't cooperate, and keeps pulling the same thing for months afterward.
Bound and Gagged:
- Late in book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), Travis leaves Lilo Perris in this state after he figures out she's luring him into a trap.
- Later, when Travis is talking to Sheriff Hyzer and Deputy Billy Cable, Cable keeps interrupting him until Hyzer threatens to use this trope on him if he doesn't shut up. Cable obeys.
The Bus Came Back: In the last few pages of book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), Travis finds Heidi Geis Trumbill from book 8 (One Fearful Yellow Eye) in his home just as he's returning after some time away.
Clear My Name: In book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), following an incident in which Travis saw a woman (later revealed as Lilo Perris) running across the street, which led him to swerve off the road and into a swamp, Travis reports the incident to the police — and he and Meyer are subsequently taken into custody for their supposed part in the murder of a Frank Baither, whom neither has even heard of before. Travis has to work to clear their names as a result.
Disposing of a Body: In book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), after discovering Lew Arnstead's body in the back of his loner car, Travis and Betsy (whom he'd been spending the night with) dump it in a deep hole some distance away so as to cover up the attempted frame job they think was happening. Later, King Sturnevan kills Betsy Kapp and, after Travis sees the body and goes off to deal with Lilo and Henry Perris, Sturnevan takes her and buries her in his garden.
Eye Scream: In book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), while thinking about Cora Arnstead's cataracts, Travis recalls a rather disturbing con he's heard of in India where someone pretends to cure a cataract patient via injuring the eye in such a way that they regain their sight... for a short time, before they go completely blind within ninety days.
Frame-Up: In book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), while Travis is spending the night with Betsy Kapp, Lew Arnstead's ex, someone dumps Lew's dead body in the back of his loner car, which Travis believes is an attempt to set him up.
I Have No Son!: Or daughter, in this case. In book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), when Travis talks with Johnny Hatch and mentions his daughter Lillian (though not by name), Hatch turns cold and tells Travis, in no uncertain terms, that she is nothing to him, her mother is nothing to him, and everyone in the area knows that nobody mentions either of them to him. Then he tells Travis to leave, which Travis does. It later turns out that he's angry because he's long since figured out that she literally wasn't his daughter, but Sheriff Norman Hyzer's.
Just in Time: An accidental version is revealed in the final chapter of book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), where it's explained that Travis and the book's villain, both badly injured, were found in the nick of time by a couple of teenagers who wanted to break into the house that Travis was guarding. Instead, their sudden arrival saved Travis's life and for a time, the villain's.
The Killer Becomes the Killed: In the climax of book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), Travis — who's been deputized and is keeping watch over one of the crime scenes in the book, in order to catch the book's last remaining killer — winds up shooting said final villain, King Sturnevan, in self-defense. In something of a subversion, Sturnevan actually survives the night, but the final chapter — a few months later — has Meyer informing Travis that he'd died in the hospital that morning of a massive coronary occlusion.
Lecherous Stepparent: In book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), while investigating Lew Arnstead's things, Travis finds a letter urging Lew to stay away from Lillian "Lilo" Perris for multiple reasons, including how she was witnessed sleeping with her stepfather while her ailing mother (who was basically confined to bed and unable to speak much, all due to a stroke) was in the next room over. Unlike most examples, it's all but confirmed that this was entirely consensual between them.
Miranda Rights: Brought up early in book 12 (The Long Lavender Look) when Travis has been speaking to an officer about his car accident, and the officer, after speaking to a local sheriff, has Travis and Meyer detained so the sheriff can speak with them once he arrives, while claiming that since he's just detaining them and isn't the actual arresting officer, he doesn't have to read them their rights (though he does accurately say that he'd be reading them off a card). When the arresting officer actually arrives soon after, he does recite the Miranda Warning to them, but is not specifically shown as using the card to do so.
Outliving One's Offspring: In book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), prior to the events of the story, Sheriff Norman Hyzer lost his wife and infant son in a car accident. Later, Travis finds out that it applies to him twice over — Lillian "Lilo" Perris, who's just been murdered, is actually Hyzer's daughter.
Papa Wolf: Discussed in one scene in book 12 (The Long Lavender Look) where Deputy Sturnevan tells Travis about a man from Peru who found out about an immigration officer who'd messed with his daughter, flew up to Miami and stabbed the man about forty times. Sturnevan also describes one Dale Featherman as this type, claiming that anyone who messed with his daughter would get skinned alive.
Police Brutality: In book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), Meyer is on the receiving end of this, which Travis discovers while on his way to being questioned. The officer claims he just fell and hit his head on a bench, but Travis soon finds he was actually struck by a then off-duty officer, Lew Arnstead, who's subsequently been "dismissed with prejudice, booked for aggravated assault, and released on bond pending trial."
Razor Floss: In book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), Travis eventually discovers Betsy Kapp was murdered via being strangled by wire and bound to a tree near the tarpaper shack that Lew Arnstead had been using for his dirty deeds. He subsequently goes after Lilo Perris, whom he's certain was involved in her death.
Small-Town Tyrant:
- Lew Arnstead, a deputy sheriff for Cypress County, Florida, in book 12 (The Long Lavender Look). He beats up Meyer for no good reason (which gets him fired), and during Travis's subsequent investigation, is revealed to have neglected his ailing mother (who's losing her eyesight) and the family horse, had affairs with various women (some of whom he was physically abusive to) and was on drugs. It's indicated that he wasn't always this way though.
- In the same book, Lew's fellow deputy King Sturnevan turns out to be one too, as he worked with Lew on his blackmail sideline, killed him and tried to frame Travis and Betsy for it, killed Betsy Kapp to cover up when she caught him destroying evidence and retrieving the money he and Lew got via blackmail, and drowned Lilo Perris while Travis was off talking to the sheriff.
Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Downplayed; late in book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), during his clash with Henry Perris, Travis resorts to throwing a couple of oyster knives (small knives designed more for prying than cutting) at him, one of which finally kills the man when it catches him in the chest at the right angle to damage the arteries above his heart.
Trapped in a Sinking Car: The plot of book 12 (The Long Lavender Look) kicks off when Travis swerves his truck to avoid a woman running across the street in front of him and nearly falls off the road, then does fall off it when a rear tire blows out, and ends up underwater before Meyer rescues him.
Water Torture: In book 12 (The Long Lavender Look), after Travis captures the villainess Lilo Perris, ties her up and (after killing her associate) leaves her unattended, another of her associates finds her, interrogates her for information offscreen (by putting her head in a bucket of water), and then drowns her after she gives up the desired information.

I have yet to read the following books in the series (or in one case need to re-read it and add more tropes); the tropes come from the main trope page or from what I've read elsewhere. This is my main focus at the moment.

Tropes from the main page or elsewhere without books listed

No Doubt the Years Have Changed Me: In book ? (()), a woman fails to recognize a man as someone she had known years earlier (and who had a reason to want to kill her) because he had contracted cancer since she had last seen him. This resulted in him losing vast amounts of weight and shaving his head.

#13: A Tan and Sandy Silence (1971)

Shoot Him, He Has a Wallet!: Narrowly averted in book 13 (A Tan and Sandy Silence) when Meyer starts to say "I happen to have here a-" and is cut off by the cop, very evidently thinking he's armed, telling him "Easy. Bring it out real slow." When Meyer continues his sentence, he explains that he has, and wants to show them, a note with information about the vehicle he and Travis were just looking at (belonging to Mary Broll) when the cops arrived on the scene.
Skinny Dipping: In book 13 (A Tan and Sandy Silence), while looking for Mary Broll, Travis consults with her friend Holly Dressner (who was in her backyard pool when she heard him at the front door and answered in her robe) and accidentally discovers, when her robe slips, that she hadn't just been swimming — she'd been skinny dipping. She confesses that it's just something she likes to do when she's alone.

#14: The Scarlet Ruse (1972)

In book 14 (The Scarlet Ruse)

#15: The Turquoise Lament (1973)

Inheritance Murder: Variant in book 15 (The Turquoise Lament), where Linda "Pidge" Lewellen, the daughter of an old friend, wants Travis's help to prove that her husband is trying to kill her for her inheritance.
In book 15 (The Turquoise Lament)

#16: The Dreadful Lemon Sky (1974)

In book 16 (The Dreadful Lemon Sky)

#17: The Empty Copper Sea (1978)

Audit Threat: In book 17 (The Empty Copper Sea), McGee pulls this on a a bar owner — knowing that health and fire codes are contradictory and therefore he is almost guaranteed to be breaking one of them. This scene was kept in the 1980 Made-for-TV Movie adaptation Travis McGee (a Failed Pilot Episode starring Rod Taylor).
Clear Their Name: The plot of book 17 (The Empty Copper Sea) kicks off when McGee is hired to prove that Van Harder did not kill his boss, Hub Lawless.
(checking) Faking the Dead: Book 17 (The Empty Copper Sea) has Travis hired to prove that Hub Lawless did this to set up his pilot, Van Harder.

#18: The Green Ripper (1979)

The Fighting Narcissist: In book 18 (The Green Ripper), Travis mentions one of his opponents always seems to be a bit too much "posing for the non-existent camera". It's just about this guy's only flaw, as he is a really good combat fighter.
If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: In book 18 (The Green Ripper), Travis tries to join the Church of the Apocrypha, a terrorist religious cult. As part of his Kitten Eating Test he is ordered to shoot someone.
Mondegreen: A real-life example. According to Stephen King's nonfiction work Danse Macabre, series author MacDonald named book 18 (The Green Ripper) after one.
John D. MacDonald tells the story of how for weeks his son was terrified of something he called "the green ripper." MacDonald and his wife finally figured it out — at a dinner party, a friend had mentioned the Grim Reaper. What their son had heard was green ripper, and later it became the title of one of MacDonald's Travis McGee stories.
Pay Evil unto Evil: Book 18 (The Green Ripper?) shows the dark side of this — McGee has to kill several people who are part of a terrorist group who would kill him in a second if he didn't agree to help them. He eliminates them all and then suffers a Heroic BSoD immediately afterward.

#19: Free Fall in Crimson (1981)

Heroic BSoD: Travis has had his share throughout the series, but Meyer suffers one in the climax of book 19 (Free Fall in Crimson) so bad that it carries over into the next book. The villain holds him at gunpoint and takes him hostage; Meyer has gotten hurt before, but this is the closest he ever comes to actually dying in one of these adventures, and his self-image is shaken badly by his own lack of fortitude in this situation.

#20: Cinnamon Skin (1982)

In book 20 (Cinnamon Skin)

#21: The Lonely Silver Rain (1984)

Luke, You Are My Father: In book 21 (The Lonely Silver Rain), Travis learns that he has a teenage daughter, Jean Killian, the result of Travis' affair with the late Puss Killian in book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt).
(checking) Someone to Remember Him By: Rare male example in book 21 (The Lonely Silver Rain), where Travis learns he has a teenage daughter when she comes to him after her mother, Puss Killian from book 9 (Pale Gray for Guilt), is murdered.

Sandbox / Anone Mouse Jr

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Literature.Travis Mc Gee — Main section is already on the site. This is for adding tropes to individual books, as I get around to reading them. Series ended.

I have yet to read the following books in the series (or in one case need to re-read it and add more tropes); the tropes come from the main trope page or from what I've read elsewhere. This is my main focus at the moment.

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