A new cozy mystery series from USA Today best-selling author Dale Mayer. Follow gardener and amateur sleuth Doreen Montgomery—and her amusing and mostly lovable cat, dog, and parrot—as they catch murderers and solve crimes in lovely Kelowna, British Columbia.Riches to rags. … Controlling to chaos. … But murder … seriously?After her ex-husband leaves her high and dry, former socialite Doreen … and dry, former socialite Doreen Montgomery’s chance at a new life comes in the form of her grandmother, Nan’s, dilapidated old house in picturesque Kelowna … and the added job of caring for the animals Nan couldn’t take into assisted living with her: Thaddeus, the loquacious African gray parrot with a ripe vocabulary, and his buddy, Goliath, a monster-size cat with an equally monstrous attitude.
It’s the new start Doreen and her beloved basset hound, Mugs, desperately need. But, just as things start to look up for Doreen, Goliath the cat and Mugs the dog find a human finger in Nan’s overrun garden.
And not just a finger. Once the police start digging, the rest of the body turns up and turns out to be connected to an old unsolved crime.
With her grandmother as the prime suspect, Doreen soon finds herself stumbling over clues and getting on Corporal Mack Moreau’s last nerve, as she does her best to prove her beloved Nan innocent of murder.
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Great book, I bought the series.
Easy to read.
I really enjoyed this read
Cozy mysteries are not really my genre, but I plowed through this one and it wasn’t bad. That’s why it got 3 stars.7
I laughed out loud at the antics of Doreen’s critters! I could envision them clearly from the description.
Humously funny
Funny story full of surprises.
Very enjoyable
A fun read. Kept the questions going and didn’t figure out the “who done it” until the very end.
thoroughly enjoyed reading
Loved it.
Easy to read and follow the characters. A few points could have been explained better. A short, fun beach read.
I find this series quite humorous and enjoy the main characters banter
Amusing characters, sense of silliness that made me like everyone in the story.
Cozy mystery that was fun to read.
I liked the mystery & trying to figure it out before the end of the book..
I’m surprised at many of the other reviews as I found Arsenic in the Azaleas to be a wonderfully funny, witty, page-turner of a novel where the surprises just keep on coming, and I absolutely adore Thaddeus, the African blue-gray parrot; Goliath, the monster-size Maine coon cat; and Mugs, the beloved basset hound. The main character, Doreen moves to her grandmother Nan’s house after a ruinous 14-year marriage where her only jobs were to be arm candy and a glorified trophy wife to her very controlling husband. When she arrives at her new home, she has no clue how to do anything virtually for herself, and her grandmother Nan has left her home to her because Nan has had to move into a retirement settlement and can no longer care for her property.
The mysteries start to occur on day one, and Doreen immediately comes to know the police force on a first-name basis. As she works more closely with Corporeal Mack Moreau, to justify her innocence, as well as that of her aunt, more bodies begin appearing and more folks from the small Missions neighborhood are sucked into the mix of those who may be possible suspects.
I would very much like to read the remaining books in this series and would definitely recommend them to anyone who loves a lively, clean, and fund read!
great start to this series. some of the situations are just this side of “i can’t stand this it is too insane” and then it’s reeled back in enough to keep you going. super LOL with the addition of the animals. characters over the top but truly likeable. looking forward to the next adventure.
FUN, FUN, FUN. I really enjoyed reading this book and I am betting you will too. I loved her 3 pets and their personalities as much as I did the people in the story.
Humorous Cozy Mystery with Gardening
This is the first book in the series and it will make you want to read the rest. The story takes place in Canada, involves a lot of flower gardening and some great, quirky pets and people. There are a couple of bad words, but they are necessary to the story. I really enjoyed this book and am going to read the rest of the series. I purchased this book and this is my honest opinion.