Pages

Friday, November 4, 2022

Novella Review: Death by Hot Cocoa by Alex Erickson (Bookstore Café Mysteries #7.5)

Stars: 5 out of 5
Pros: Puzzling Christmas mystery
Cons: None for me
The Bottom Line:
Escape room murder
With a festive Christmas theme
Sure to entertain



Escape from a Killer

I read the first in Alex Erickson’s Bookstore Café Mysteries many moons ago, but I never got around to reading more until I picked up the Christmas Cocoa Murder anthology a couple of years ago.  I really enjoyed his entry, “Death by Hot Cocoa.”

Krissy Hancock has been talked into doing a Christmas themed escape room by her friend Rita.  The game starts out with the participants being placed in separate rooms, but when they all meet up in the second room, they find the body of their host, Lewis, lying in a pool of spilled hot cocoa.  Is Krissy locked in a room with a killer?  Can she figure out the clues to the crime and the clues to escaping the room?

Since it had been so long since I read the first book, I really didn’t remember much about the characters in the series, but that is okay because almost the entire story takes place at the escape room.  With Krissy trapped in a room with all the suspects, it is easy to get to know them.  I hadn’t tried any escape rooms yet when I read this story, but I appreciated how this modern trend was used to update the locked room staple of the mystery genre.  It was well done with the clues to both parts of the mystery layered in to the events.  This one definitely kept me turning the pages.

This is a novella, so it is about 100 pages long, easy to slip into a busy December.  There’s plenty of Christmas atmosphere to enjoy as you read.  And you’ll also enjoy the recipe for hot cocoa at the end.

If you’ve already read the Christmas Cocoa Murder anthology, there’s no need to pick up this book.  But if you’ve missed it, you’ll definitely be glad you picked up “Death by Hot Cocoa.”

1 comment:

  1. I feel like I've read something by this author and enjoyed it but need to look into it. These Christmas novellas all sound so fun!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for stopping by. In order to combat spam, I moderate most comments. I'll get to your comment as soon as I can.