Cozy Dads?

By Campbell Sharpe

My dad is hard to shop for. He has no need for little things and getting him a power drill or a weedwhacker almost feels like I’m gifting him a chore. Since he hasn’t sincerely accepted any of my poems since the first grade and the man’s taste in art is not refined enough to appreciate my crayon drawings, I have been brainstorming Father’s Day ideas for the past month.

Luckily, on a recent road trip, he turned on a True Crime murder mystery podcast. Because he was driving, I had to listen. Under the duress of the police, a father confessed to killing his daughter and was sentenced to life imprisonment despite a significant amount of evidence proving his innocence. The narrator explained in gruesome detail all the ways he could have done it and all the reasons why it might have been someone else entirely. By the end, we did not quite know who to blame, but despite the perpetrator, everyone knew the daughter was most definitely dead. Luckily, I know my father well enough to understand that this vaguely threatening podcast played in a car consisting of just a father and daughter was nothing more than a tactless, random choice of podcast. However, it got me thinking.

I am an avid reader. My dad, not so much. But after that True Crime car ride, I figured why not get him something that merges both our interests and is father themed? Right in time for Father’s Day, Cozy Cat has quite a few books your odd, oblivious father will talk about for the next six hours of your road trip:

The Sinister Course

By Diane Weiner

When the dear friend of the town’s beloved innkeeper is murdered, sleuthing couple Emily and Henry Fox don’t hesitate to step in. Something’s fishy regarding the property the victim recently purchased. The previous owner wants it back, the neighbors want it vacant, and the next of kin who stands to inherit the property is missing! Meanwhile, Henry and Emily’s daughter, Maddy, may be in grave danger. Maddy’s biological father has been prematurely released from prison due to a city-wide health crisis. When he shows up in Sugarbury Falls, Henry is determined to protect his daughter at any cost.

Doubly Departed

By Carmen Will

Nathan Reynolds drowned in the Salt River near Arizona's Tempe Town Lake, but someone shot him in the head before he died. Amanda Winters, Nathan’s godmother and best friend to Nathan’s mother Dinah, believes that his murder may be linked to the ten-year-old disappearance of Nathan’s father––corporate attorney Tom Reynolds. While fighting a debilitating panic disorder, Amanda sets out to help local homicide detective Roy Staatz solve Nathan’s murder. With help from her son, husband, and quirky Aunt Sally, Amanda charts a course that leads her group of intrepid mystery hunters on a wild chase across the border, into an abandoned mine, and even to a pilotless plane soaring high above the mountains. Will Amanda overcome her fears and solve this strange mystery?

An Au Pair to Remember

By Stephen Kaminski

In his mind, Cam Reddick has failed—as a husband, as a father, and as a professional. After recognizing that his vanilla credentials didn’t stack up in a big city brimming with overachievers and toiling in drudgery for half of a decade, an emotionally raw Cam returns to his childhood hometown—the quaint and quirky village of Rusted Bonnet, Michigan. He’s determined to resuscitate relationships marred by youthful immaturity, most importantly those with his ex-wife Kacey Gingerfield, the village’s Deputy Chief of Police, and their first grader, Emma. Armed with striking looks and an endearing proclivity for mixing metaphors, Cam takes the helm of his mother’s housekeeping business—Peachy Kleen. Cam’s plan for a quiet return to Rusted Bonnet is dashed when a beautiful German au pair, Greta Astor, is found dead in Dutch McRae’s foyer with all signs pointing to a hastily disassembled trip wire at the top of the stairs. When Kacey learns that Cam was cleaning the McRae home the previous afternoon, she confides to him that Chief Bernie Leftwich is set on arresting Dutch for the murder—either alone or in tandem with Greta’s bartender boyfriend. But she worries that Bernie’s been duped. And later, when his mother Darby becomes a suspect, Cam inserts himself into the investigation.

Death at Beggar’s Knob

By Owen Magruder

John Braemhor, a retired former member of the Rhodesian constabulary, runs a B&B in Daraichburn in the Scottish lowlands with his wife, Mary. But the quiet life of an innkeeper does not keep pace with his former, more dynamic investigative existence. The world of unique and fascinating crime puzzles continues to beckon him. And so when individuals begin vanishing from inside fairy circles under hawthorn trees, as foretold in ages old folktales, John and Mary travel to the Loch Ness region, to investigate these strange disappearances. Later the perplexing, worldwide phenomenon known as “the hum,” a bizarre low frequency sound heard by very few people, causes them to enlist the assistance of Mary’s eccentric aunt to unravel its origins. Beggar’s Knob also claims their attention when an artist appears to be literally sucking the life out of the subjects of his paintings as he transfers their images onto canvas. Braemhor’s superior knowledge of the history of crime leads to an understanding of the motives behind the criminal’s actions. These and other adventures, including the use of hypnosis in crime and murder during a professional meeting, keep John and Mary Braemhor busy thwarting the criminal elements of their native Scotland and of a small college town across the pond in the Colonies.

Dead Stock

By Tim Hall

Meet Bert Shambles, a perpetually confused young man whose life continually mirrors his surname. He is stuck back in his suburban Long Island hometown, enduring a three-year suspended sentence for an act of chivalry gone terribly wrong. He works part-time at a church thrift shop and makes extra money by selling “dead stock”—vintage clothes that have never been worn—to a local boutique. On a routine pick up for the thrift shop, Bert learns that the widow of a recently deceased pro golfer is offering a reward for the return of her dead husband’s favorite putter—and an even bigger reward for proof that her husband was murdered. Bert jumps at the chance, and soon finds himself being chased by a violent, van-driving maniac, romantically involved with a mobster’s daughter, and quite possibly being set up to take the fall by his probation officer and crazy ex-girlfriend. As the forces of good and evil close in around him, Bert must race to clear his name and discover the truth so he doesn’t wind up in prison…or worse. Filled with twists, turns, and unforgettable characters, and propelled by a truly lovable hero and wicked sense of humor, Dead Stock heralds the arrival of a wonderful new mystery series.

All of these books are available on Amazon or take a tour through the “Books” tab of our website to do some hunting of your own. But remember, a book is a better gift for Dad than last year’s coupon for a free road trip, especially when he gets to DJ.