This is Kelsey Patterson with the Sioux City Public Library and you’re listening to Check It Out.
Today, I’m recommending A Death in Door County, the first book in Annelise Ryan’s new Monster Hunter mystery series. Morgan Carter, owner of the Odds and Ends bookstore and curio shop 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.
When a number of bodies start turning up on the shores of Lake Michigan with peculiar 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.
As a voracious mystery reader, Morgan Carter might just be the most unusual amateur detective I’ve ever come across. Her intelligence is off the charts, she owns a very unique and peculiar bookstore, is a degreed cryptozoologist, an avid swimmer, dedicated friend and employer, generous philanthropist, and is somehow equal parts fearless and cautious. She’s inherently likeable and made for a great narrator and intriguing sleuth.
Author Annelise Ryan does a great job infusing the story with the fascinating history and lore of the area and teaches readers a great deal about the underwater geography of the Great Lakes fearsome waterways.
A new take on the cozy mystery genre, A Death in Door County is a fun, engaging read. Check out it and other cozy mysteries like it at the Sioux City Public Library.
Support for Check It Out on Siouxland Public Media comes from Verde Outdoor Media.
