Curl up with a Cozy Mystery Today!
Summer is the best time to enter the M&M Book Awards
You have until July 31st to share your Novel with us and enter the 2025 CIBAs!
This Division is dedicated to one of the most Well-known Mystery authors, Dame Agatha Christie. Writer of Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence, and so much more.
WWI Nurse, Writer, Playwright (and record holder of longest running Stage Play, The Mousetrap which opened in 1952), and Archaeologist, the latter of which contributed greatly to her novels.
When she wasn’t busy writing, She spent quite a good amount of her life working on excavations in Egypt and Iraq with her 2nd Husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan.
But enough about Christie. The Hall of Fame features the Grand Prize Winners of the Mystery and Mayhem Award who we are proud to have in the Chanticleer Family!
If Two Are Dead: A Garnick and Paschal Mystery
By Jeanne Matthews
An enigmatic raven-haired beauty mysteriously murdered and cast into a stranger’s grave, left for scurrilous resurrection men to uncover in the dark of night! In Jeanne Matthews’s historical mystery If Two Are Dead, Detectives Quinn Paschal and Gabriel Garnick take up this case of vicious murder and ignite a mire of secrets and resentment at the pinnacle of 1867 Chicago society.
After catching the body-snatchers in the act of stealing a freshly buried corpse to sell for medical research, Quinn and Garnick realize the body found in Emmett Buck’s grave is by no means that of a young man, but that of a woman, whose bloody head and clean clothes point to a complex mystery. With only her appearance and some identifying jewelry, Quinn insists they can and will catch the killer of ‘Marietta A.V.’ Enlisting the help of an unscrupulous journalist, they locate her husband, a wealthy and influential doctor.
The woman’s husband, Dr. Horace E. Vinings, offers them an incredible reward if they can find Marietta’s killer. But Quinn and Garnick suspect he might not like the answer he receives.
A Haunting at Linley: A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Novel
By Michelle Cox
In this seventh book of the series, Clive and Henrietta return to England to find Castle Linley in financial ruin. When Clive’s cousin, Wallace, invites an estate agent in to assess the home’s value, the agent is later found poisoned, throwing all of the Castle’s guests into suspicion. Clive and Henrietta are soon drawn into an investigation, which is slowed by an incompetent local inspector and several unexplained phenomena—the cause of which many, especially the frail Lady Linley, believe to be the workings of the ghost of a hanged maid.
Meanwhile, Gunther and Elsie have begun life on a farm in Omaha. Circumstances are difficult, but they are content—until Oldrich Exely appears, proposing an option Elsie finds difficult to ignore. Melody Merriweather, still masquerading as a nun to aid Elsie’s escape, likewise finds it difficult to ignore a letter with tragic news from home, while Julia, on the other hand, receives a very different sort of letter from Glenn Forbes.
Back in England, Clive is called away to London on suspicious business, leaving Henrietta to carry on with the investigation alone. When she is mysteriously locked in the study one night, however, things take on a more deadly, supernatural feel, leaving her to fear that Lady Linley’s “ghost” might just be real after all…
A Spying Eye: A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Novel
By Michelle Cox
Brooding Château du Freudeneck, just outside Strasbourg, France has villains in the drawing rooms, stolen art hidden in the cellars, and bats in the belfry – all the best elements for a 19th-century Gothic mystery.
However, in Michelle Cox’s novel, A Spying Eye it’s the 20th century. The Great War is passed, but the next war already looms on the horizon. The people of Strasbourg feel the growing conflict sharply, at the heart of Alsace-Lorraine, a fertile region that has been contested between France and Germany since time immemorial.
Which means those bats are in the unfortunate head of the elderly Baron Von Harmon, the current lord and master (as much as he’s still able to be, at least) of the Chateau, while the stolen art is pursued by both the villainous Nazis and the only slightly-less villainous agents of Britain’s MI5.
Ophelia’s Room
By Michael Scott Garvin
Ophelia’s Room by Michael Scott Garvin begins with a bang – and a child’s whimper.
A frantic, distraught father pounds on a bolted chapel door in a small country hospital…. A tiny, two-day-old infant cries in peril…. A deranged grandfather sees demons in every shadowy corner.
The opening scene read like something out of a young parent’s nightmare. Will their child be healthy? Will they grow up to be successful? Will the child be safe in their grandparents’ arms? Questions that any new mother and father ask themselves. In Garvin’s Ophelia’s Room, the answers are terrifying.
The Discovery
By Patrick M. Garry
Patrick M. Garry’s The Discovery encompasses a narrative that traverses a family legal case jigsaw puzzle toward a discovery of self by exploring the ghost of ancient regrets, basic human desires, and questions of faith.
Frank Horgan, a former lawyer at one of Minneapolis’ largest firms, now practices small-case litigation in the little community of Basswood Hills. Frank, a victim of his own follies, has one more chance to restore his career to its former glory. But not before a huge legal matter comes knocking on his door at his father’s diner. This case kicks off the legal drama, bringing in several main and secondary characters to play their parts in the ultimate discovery of buried contentedness and eventually a scandal that breaks into the national newspaper.
Meanwhile, Frank comes upon the case of the most prominent McCorkle family in Basswood Hills.
These Authors Solved the Mystery of Success
From Victorian Chicago to wartime France, these Hall of Fame winners prove that the best mysteries don’t just puzzle readers—they transport them to other worlds entirely. Each of these celebrated authors cracked the code that so many mystery writers struggle with: how to stand out in a crowded genre.
What’s their secret?
They didn’t let their stories remain unsolved cases buried in obscurity.
Your cozy mystery deserves the same recognition. In Dame Agatha Christie’s tradition, the M&M Awards celebrate authors who understand that the most satisfying mysteries combine clever plotting with unforgettable characters.
The Case for Your Mystery
Will your amateur sleuth be next to join this prestigious lineup? Whether your story unfolds in a quaint English village or a bustling American town, the M&M Awards provide the recognition and promotional platform that transforms hidden gems into must-read mysteries.
The SOMERSET Book Awards recognize emerging talent and outstanding works in the genre of Literary and Contemporary Fiction. The Somerset Book Awards is a genre division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).
