Guilt is Midnight Blue: A Hazel Dean Mystery
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Publisher: Eburnean Books (May 6, 2021)
Paperback: 290 pages

Synopsis

Hazel Dean can see other’s emotions in color.

She mostly uses it to help people find the perfect book in her shop, Books and Chocolate. But, when one of her customers is murdered, the police point to an old feud. Only Hazel can tell that the accused is innocent. She must navigate around her district attorney husband, and her surrogate uncle, the police captain, to find out what really happened.

Hazel drives, hikes and snoops all over her small Appalachian town in an attempt to bring peace to the victim’s family and prevent her community from being torn apart by old grudges.

Amazon – B&N

Guest Post

To Kill A Mockingbird: American Literature’s Greatest Work

To Kill A Mockingbird recently took the top spot in PBS’s Great American Read contest wherein Americans voted for their most loved novel. In fact, To Kill A Mockingbird was the only book in the top 5 that had a setting in the United States and only two of the top five were penned by American authors. (the others were Outlander, Pride and Prejudice, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings) Interesting, but I’ll save that rant for another day.

To Kill A Mockingbird has it all: coming of age, legal thriller, social justice commentary and mystery all rolled into one. It has clearly defined heroes and villains, but also plenty of morally ambiguous characters.

I am fascinated with how autobiographical To Kill A Mockingbird is. Harper Lee’s father, who went by Finch, was an attorney involved in a trial similar to the one in the book. He defended two black men accused of murdering a white storekeeper. They were found guilty and hanged.

Dill is based on Lee’s childhood friend, Truman Capote. They were dear friends their whole lives and often edited each other’s work. Lee even went to Kansas with Capote to help him do research for In Cold Blood. Apparently, his flamboyant personality was off-putting to the locals and she was able to get more out of them with her down-to-earth attitude. The romantic in me likes to imagine that Lee, who never married, was in love with Capote her whole life.

Capote related that there really was a recluse that lived down the street from them. And he really did leave them gifts in a hollowed-out tree.

The hero worship Harper Lee feels towards her father is evident in Atticus Finch’s character. One of the working titles for the book was Atticus.

While Go Set A Watchman and the Broadway play version of the book spark doubt about Atticus Finch, he largely remains a heroic figure in American literary history. Some of the racial dynamics in the book have, gratefully, become outdated. However, a man willing to do whatever he can to defend the rights of others will always be someone to admire and emulate. Lee has been criticized many times for using a “white savior” trope. This is an oversimplification. Atticus didn’t actually save anyone. Tom Robinson died in the end. Atticus Finch was unable to enact any meaningful change. I don’t think that the point of this book is that Atticus is a savior or even a hero. I think its about a simple man, full of integrity, trying to do the right thing.

In my cozy mystery, Guilt is Midnight Blue, the main character hands To Kill A Mockingbird to a young man struggling with a moral quandary. When he reads the book, he is inspired by Atticus. He decides to stand up for what he believes is right, in the hopes that he will inspire his family in the same way Atticus inspired his children.

If you haven’t read To Kill A Mockingbird, you should. If you only ever read To Kill A Mockingbird in high school, you should read it again. It’s a beautiful, uplifting, hopeful novel that will help you solve your own moral quandaries.

Sources: pbs.org/thegreatamericanread/home/    Wikipedia.com/wiki/Harper_Lee   Wikipedia.com/wiki/To_Kill_a_Mockingbird          biography.com/writer/harper-lee

Review

I fell in love with this town in Appalachia and the people. I especially liked the take on the feud between the Trudgeon’s and McCleary’s much like the Hatfield and the McCoys.

Hazel has quite a unique gift and I enjoyed reading the descriptions of how she saw the different colors surrounding people she met and what those colors indicated. It was all very fascinating. I also loved her bookshop where the books had colors and she grouped them together by the colors they emitted and that also helped her pair them up with the right reader. I would be curious what book I should read based on the colors surrounding me.

The mystery was intriguing and Hazel just jumps right into the middle of things to discover the truth. She puts herself into a few sticky situations, but that is to be expected of most cozy protagonists. Hazel is a kind soul and I think brings out the good in people despite what those people may try to say and do.

This may be a new favorite series and I can’t wait to see what happens next for Hazel.  We give it 5 paws up.

About the Author

Josalyn McAllister is a cozy fiction author whose most recent works include Love Over Easy and Guilt is Midnight Blue. Josalyn started writing character descriptions at the tender age of seven, inspired by the works of LM Montgomery. In her teenage years, she moved on to Newsies fan fiction. Inspired by National Novel Writing Month, she wrote her first novel about a child she mentored in college. She has never stopped writing. Josalyn taught middle school history before deciding she would rather spend time with her own children than other peoples. A restless soul, she has moved all over the country and collected an eclectic array of hobbies. Her writing has a relatable quality that will charm and entertain you.

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