Sophia Rose Reviews: A Death in Door County by Annelise Ryan

 

Today Sophia Rose takes us to Door County Wisconsin where a mythical creature may or may not be real in this first installment of a brand new mystery series.
Enjoy!

A Death in Door County by Annelise Ryan

#1 Monster Hunter Mystery

Cozy Mystery

Publisher:  Berkley

Published:  9.13.22

Pages: 304

Rating: 4.5 stars

Format: ebook

Source: purchased

Sellers: Amazon

ADD TO: GoodReads

 

GoodReads Blurb:

A Wisconsin bookstore owner and cryptozoologist is asked to investigate a series of deaths that just might be proof of a fabled lake monster in this first installment of a new mystery series by USA Today bestselling author Annelise Ryan.

Morgan Carter, owner of the Odds and Ends bookstore in Door County, Wisconsin, has a hobby. When she’s not tending the store, she’s hunting cryptids—creatures whose existence is rumored, but never proven to be real. It’s a hobby that cost her parents their lives, but one she’ll never give up on.

So when a number of bodies turn up on the shores of Lake Michigan with injuries that look like bites from a giant unknown animal, police chief Jon Flanders turns to Morgan for help. A skeptic at heart, Morgan can’t turn down the opportunity to find proof of an entity whose existence she can’t definitively rule out. She and her beloved rescue dog, Newt, journey to the Death's Door strait to hunt for a homicidal monster in the lake—but if they’re not careful, they just might be its next victims.

 

 

Sophia Rose's Review:

Two mysterious deaths in Lake Michigan lead an island sheriff to the door of local cryptozoologist and mystery bookshop owner to discover if a monster is really attacking living in their local waters.  I read a fun cozy mystery under the author’s different pseudonym and was tickled to see this fun set up for her latest series.  Annelise Ryan’s multi-layered characterizations, quippy humor, well-painted local Wisconsin backdrop, and cunning mystery plot drew me in deeply.

 

A Death in Door County introduced a new series.  I enjoyed meeting Morgan, a Door County native with an eccentric, colorful and dark past.  She was introduced as much of a mystery as the case that is brought to her by equally reticent new Washington Island sheriff, Jon Flanders.  Morgan is a cryptozoologist and sells rare and odd items along with a good selection of mystery books in her small town right where ‘Death’s Door’ a waterway empties into the great lake, Michigan.  But, she doesn’t believe in all the woo-woo out there- she’s a skeptic who is open to possibilities.  Her parents were life-long hunters of every legend and mystery out there and she got a taste for it through their adventuring.  Now, she inherited the store and their knowledge and will use it to determine if there really is a Loch Ness type of monster out there killing wildlife and people. 

 

First, she plans to rule out murder by less legendary means and her investigations get someone nervous.  She is warned off, but doesn’t give up.  She also colors outside the lines and enjoys making Sheriff Flannery scowl and bluster at her antics.  Morgan has serious trust issues since what happened in her past and all the men who’ve only showed interest to get their hands on her inherited fortune.  Intuition tells her that Jon only wants her to help him solve these deaths in the waters off his island and he seems interested in her as a woman, but… no, she is too afraid of letting anyone close to her heart. 

This also leads to her taking a lone approach to investigating and, yes, hiding some of her finds and working that part of the case alone.  I was none too happy about that, but it does make sense once her background slowly gets fleshed out.  Poor Morgan, she had some tragic things happen in her life and she struggles with them still.  She doesn’t ever call him one, but she does have a therapy dog in Newt, who is her constant companion and settles her when needed.

 

It was fun having a cryptoid mystery possibility and in this beautiful locale on the coast of Wisconsin.  I loved all the historical and cultural background that came up as Morgan did her investigation.  The ending was exciting when the reveal came about mostly because Morgan was tenacious and was open to some of the least-likely little facts that led her to the truth.  I can’t wait to keep going with the series and recommend it to cozy mystery lovers who like a little legend pizzazz to their stories.

 

 

Author Bio:

Annelise Ryan is the USA Today bestselling author of the Monster Hunter Mysteries featuring cryptozoologist and bookstore owner, Morgan Carter, and the Mattie Winston mystery series, featuring a wryly cynical nurse-turned-coroner. She has always believed laughter really is the best medicine, and with the Mattie Winston series she hoped to "medicate" the masses. She also believes in a good scare every once in a while, hence the Monster Hunter mysteries, the first of which, A Death in Door County, came out in September of 2022. The second in that series, Death in the Dark Woods, comes out in December 2023.

Annelise Ryan is a pseudonym for author Beth Amos. There were several reasons why she decided to use a pseudonym, not the least of which was that her ER patients might not have been comfortable knowing she spent her spare time thinking up clever ways to kill people. She is also the author of the Mack's Bar Mystery series written as Allyson K. Abbott. Ryan is a retired emergency room RN living in Wisconsin.

Website:  https://www.anneliseryan.com/

Sophia’s Bio:

Sophia is a quiet though curious gal who dabbles in cooking, book reviewing, piano-playing, and gardening. Road trips and campouts, museums and monuments, restaurants and theaters are her jam. Encouraged and supported by an incredible man and loving family. A Northern Californian transplant to the Great Lakes Region of the US. Lover of Jane Austen, Baseball, Cats, Scooby Doo, and Chocolate.

As a lifelong reader, it was inevitable that Sophia would discover book blogs and the joy of blog reviewing. Sophia is a prolific reader and audiobook listener which allows her to experience so many wonderful books, authors, and narrators. Few genres are outside her reading tastes, but her true love is fiction particularly history, mystery, sci-fi, and romance. Though, sorry, no horror or she will run like Shaggy and Scooby.

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/sophia.rose.7587

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sophiarose1816

GoodReads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13418187.Sophia_Rose