Murder at the Rusty Anchor is book six in Maddie Day’s Cozy Capers Book Group Mystery series, and I grabbed this on audio since the summer time to sit down and read time seems to be less this year. This series features bike shop owner Mackenzie “Mac” Almeida and her cozy book club friends. This is my first in the series and I could jump right in and follow along. I’m delighted that the earlier entries in the series are also available as audiobooks. 

Set in the fictional Cape Cod village of Westham, this novel jumps right into the action when it opens with the chef of the Rusty Anchor Pub opening for the day only to discover the body of Bruce Byrne, dead behind the bar. Bruce was an elderly, rather disliked local high school teacher.  Once it’s determined to be murder AND Mac’s friend Flo, the librarian, makes the list of possible suspects, Mac and the rest of the Cozy Capers Book Group gather to clear her name. 

This mystery novel started off with a bang and kept the twists and turns coming! I had my guesses on the true murderer but that certainly didn’t take away any of my enjoyment of the mystery. The characters are all real and have a depth about them that make them each unique and ones I wanted to know. I especially felt for Mac and her struggles with fertility (there’s definitely a bit of talk about fertility throughout, just as a head’s up). I also loved that the cozy mystery group was reading A Very Woodsy Murder, a new book by the author Ellen Byron that I’m looking forward to reading. 

Wonderful details of small town life, real characters and a strong mystery made for a lovely listen as I folded boat loads of laundry! I also enjoyed that it was set in the summertime as that made it felt like armchair travel! 

Maddie Day is a pseudonym for Agatha Award-winning mystery author Edith Maxwell. As Maddie Day, Edith also writes the Country Store Mysteries, from Kensington, set in southern Indiana, and the Cece Barton Mysteries series, set in northern California wine country. @kensingtonbooks 

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