My name is Bizzy Baker, and I can read minds—not every mind, not every time, but most of the time and believe me when I say it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Mind reading sounds like a superpower until you’re stuck hearing people’s unfiltered thoughts about your outfit, your life choices, or what they really think of the casserole you brought to the potluck. It’s Christmas in Cider Cove, which means the annual house decorating competition is in full swing with residents of Candy Cane Lane going all out with lights, inflatables, animatronic displays, and enough electricity to power a small city. The competition is fierce, the judging is serious, and the neighborhood pride is at stake. ☃️

But on the night set to determine the winner, the residents of Candy Cane Lane get more than they bargained for. They don’t just get an award for best holiday display—they get murder. Someone’s been killed amid the twinkling lights and festive decorations, turning what should be a celebration into a crime scene. With Bizzy’s mind-reading abilities picking up panicked thoughts, guilty consciences, and secrets people desperately want hidden, she’s uniquely positioned to investigate. The problem is sorting through the mental noise to figure out who’s thinking about murder they committed versus murder they’re afraid of being blamed for. 🎄

Addison Moore and Bellamy Bloom deliver a cozy mystery boxed set where Christmas decorating competition becomes backdrop for homicide, and where Bizzy’s psychic abilities are both investigative advantage and curse—hearing everyone’s thoughts means wading through mental clutter to find actual evidence. The Candy Cane Lane setting provides both whimsy and claustrophobia, a neighborhood where everyone knows everyone and the holiday decorations can’t hide the darkness underneath. Multiple stories in the boxed set mean readers get full immersion in Cider Cove’s quirky community and Bizzy’s complicated relationship with her mind-reading gift. 🎁

This is cozy animal mystery—though the “animal” aspect comes from the community’s various pets who feature throughout the investigations—where holiday cheer masks murder, psychic abilities complicate rather than simplify detective work, and Christmas competitions prove that some people take their inflatable Santa displays very seriously. The boxed set format lets readers binge Bizzy’s adventures in solving murders while managing the constant mental intrusion of other people’s thoughts, proving that sometimes the hardest part of being psychic isn’t using your abilities—it’s knowing when to trust them and when the thoughts you’re hearing are designed to mislead. 🔮

What makes this essential: A cozy mystery boxed set where mind-reader Bizzy Baker investigates murder on Candy Cane Lane during Cider Cove’s Christmas decorating competition—using her psychic abilities to sort through mental noise and guilty thoughts while holiday displays hide deadly secrets beneath the twinkling lights.

Famous for beaches, resorts, and nightlife, Acapulco is ground zero for the war on drugs where drug cartels fight over smuggling routes into the United States for fentanyl and cocaine. Human trafficking is surging, missing persons are never found, homicide rates are exploding, and every murder is an unsolved mystery because the police department is riddled with corruption at every level. Even worse for Detective Emilia Cruz, the most corrupt cop in the department is her own lieutenant—the person who should be supporting her investigations but instead actively undermines them for reasons that clearly involve cartel money. 🏖️

When he’s murdered, Emilia is assigned to lead the investigation and uncovers an ugly mess no one wants exposed. Both the mayor and the head of the police union pressure her to close the case quickly with minimal investigation. Their reasons have nothing to do with justice and everything to do with protecting their own interests—the mayor doesn’t want bad press affecting tourism, and the police union doesn’t want scrutiny on how deeply corruption runs through the force. Meanwhile, another detective becomes her prime suspect, complicating everything because investigating a colleague means navigating department politics while trying to determine if she’s chasing a murderer or being set up to take the fall. 🔍

Feeling like one of Acapulco’s famous cliff divers praying not to smash into the rocks below, Emilia must choose between truth and survival. She can follow the evidence wherever it leads—potentially exposing corruption that reaches the highest levels of Acapulco government and police—or she can close the case the way her superiors want and survive to fight another day. Either way, she won’t be ready for the impact when she discovers how deep the corruption goes and how many powerful people have reasons to want certain truths buried. Neither will you. 💥

Carmen Amato delivers police procedural set in Acapulco’s narco-violence reality, where being an honest cop means you’re either compromised, dead, or fighting battles on multiple fronts simultaneously. Emilia’s investigation into her corrupt lieutenant’s murder becomes meditation on what justice means when the system itself is broken, when following evidence means risking your career and life, and when the people who should support law enforcement are actively sabotaging it. This is noir crime fiction grounded in contemporary Mexican reality, where the famous cliff divers serve as metaphor for Emilia’s impossible choices—leap into the investigation and pray you don’t hit the rocks, or refuse to jump and live with the knowledge that you let corruption win. 🌊

What makes this essential: An Acapulco police procedural where Detective Emilia Cruz investigates her corrupt lieutenant’s murder, facing pressure from the mayor and police union to close the case while another detective becomes her prime suspect—forcing her to choose between truth and survival like Acapulco’s famous cliff divers praying not to hit the rocks.

Oakland PI Jeri Howard is now taking house calls—at least when her ex-husband’s daughter Vicki Vernon is on the other end of the line. Vicki, an undergrad at prestigious UC Berkeley, fears the worst when her shared house receives multiple threats from an unknown antagonizer. First it’s hostile phone calls with disturbing content, then escalating vandalism of their property, then active stalking that makes everyone in the house feel unsafe. Everything becomes terrifyingly real when Jeri picks up the house phone herself and hears the stalker’s chilling voice firsthand—the hatred in those words confirming that this isn’t a prank or misunderstanding but genuine menace directed at someone in that house. 🏠

As if that weren’t enough, a nasty flyer circulates around the law school filled with bigoted epithets against students of color and women—and it’s uncannily similar to the anonymous caller’s hateful words, suggesting the harassment might be connected to broader campus intimidation. But with so many possible targets in one household, Jeri’s just not sure which of the housemates is the primary target or if they’re all being threatened for different reasons. After all, Rachel volunteers at an abortion clinic, making her a target for anti-choice extremists. Ben is an African-American student on scholarship facing racism. Marisol spends her time helping victims of domestic abuse, potentially angering abusers. And Vicki and Emily have been harassed on campus by a sexist chemistry student whose behavior crosses lines regularly. 🎓

Jeri must untangle which housemate’s activities have provoked this level of violent attention, or whether the threat is directed at the entire household for representing progressive values the stalker despises. The investigation becomes complicated by the setting—UC Berkeley in an era of heightened campus tensions over diversity, women’s rights, and social justice activism. Any of these students could have antagonized someone dangerous simply by existing, by pursuing their education, by engaging in activism that threatens the status quo. 🔍

Janet Dawson delivers a women sleuth anthology spanning books 6-9 of the Jeri Howard series, following Oakland PI as she investigates campus harassment that escalates from phone calls to stalking to campus-wide hate speech. The college setting allows examination of how bigotry manifests in supposedly progressive spaces, while the multiple potential targets create genuine mystery about who the stalker is fixated on and why. This is detective fiction that takes seriously the threats women and minorities face while delivering procedural investigation where Jeri’s personal connection—protecting her ex-husband’s daughter—adds emotional stakes to professional detective work. 🕵️

What makes this essential: A women sleuth anthology collecting Jeri Howard books 6-9 where the Oakland PI investigates escalating threats against her ex-husband’s daughter Vicki and her UC Berkeley housemates—untangling whether the stalker targets Rachel’s abortion clinic work, Ben’s scholarship, Marisol’s domestic abuse advocacy, or campus harassment Vicki and Emily face.