The Postscript Murders starts off in a promising way to me, generally not a regular reader of cozy mysteries. I’ve read Elly Griffiths before, and seem to recall it wasn’t entirely unpleasant, so I decided to have a shot at another.

Natalka, a carer for 90-year old Peggy, is cleaning out Peggy’s room after Peggy appears to have died of natural causes. But, Natalka is suspicious after finding dedications in books from authors to Peggy, who styled herself as a “murder consultant”. She presents her suspicions to the police, and away we go.

The problem, for me, is that I was far more interested in Peggy’s living story, not the story of the investigation of her death by Harbinder Kaur. Don’t get me wrong: the story is perfectly fine. When writers start getting killed, Kaur gets the idea that perhaps Peggy’s death was not by natural causes after all and that there’s something larger going on. There are twists and turns, an arrest, and a final twist/informational item that I was a bit meh on, but if you like cozies and you like intricately plotted novels that are meta and feature other mystery novels and writers, you’ll find this to be agreeable. It’s just a periodic reminder that while I am willing to read cozies, they are often not my favorite things.

I’ll give it a solid four out of five stars. If Ms. Griffiths would like to write about Peggy, I’ll snap that up in an instant.

Thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley for the review copy.