You know what I love so much about S.C. Merritt’s cozy mysteries…. She doesn’t rely on repetition to write a book. So many cozies have the sleuth repeating the clues over and over while they solve the mystery. And while this may be how one does solve a murder mystery, I find myself skimming if this happens too much in a book.

Add to that her well developed characters, interesting locations, and a smidge of scripture and you know you’re in for a fantastic read.

In Dead in the Water, the first book in her Bucket List Mysteries, we are introduced to a retirement village full of fun and quirky characters, along with our sleuths Maisie and Dot. Our sleuths compliment each other so well with one being more orderly and she doesn’t coddle suspects and the other being a bit more creative and gentler during the interrogations.

But even better than a village full of interesting people, Dot and Maisie have decided to buy an RV and travel to various places on their bucket lists… so you know future books are going to be filled with lots of new locations, characters, and murder suspects. And if the older women need to recharge between trips we’ll be able to catch up with the people in the retirement village. I think Merritt has a real winning idea here with being able to have so many unique locations for each book.

If you are looking for clean cozies with lots of memorable characters and riveting settings, you should give Merritt’s books a read. ( )