A cozy cheese-scented mystery with delightful characters, a dash of murder and tons of intrigue, perfect for fans of The Thursday Murder Club and The Maid.

Cheese-obsessed Bird Nichols has just inherited her grandmother’s estate in a quiet, quirky Californian town. But when a body is found on her property, her life begins to get rather loud…

Bird Nichols is ready to make a fresh start in a familiar place. Last year, her parents died together in a car crash and her beloved grandmother is presumed dead from an ocean drowning. Bird is now moving onto her grandmother's California coastal property, and finally living out her dream. Bird loves cheese like nothing else. It's her autistic special interest, and she designs her boards along her sensory needs, and other people love them, too.

But just when everything seems to be going right, the local troublemaker ends up dead on her rural road. Grizz, the closest thing Bird has to family, is the sheriff department's favourite suspect, but she is determined to prove Grizz’s innocence. So now, Bird needs to unpack her possessions, assemble her pretty cheese boards, and find the true murderer before they strike again.

Bird Nichols has moved to a small California town after inheriting property from her grandmother. She is ready for a fresh start after a bad year that saw the death of her parents and then the disappearance and suspected death of the grandmother she was just really getting to know, having been kept apart from her as a child.  Things don’t go too well to begin with, she orders the local bad boy off her property and then later finds him murdered. Since her grandmother’s friend, Grizz, is the prime suspect, Bird sets out to protect him and find the murderer herself.

Our main character is autistic as well as cheese-obsessed which makes sense since the author herself is both autistic and obsessed with cheese. The plot is well thought out and moves along well interspersed with lots of information about both cheese and autism. The murderer was not who I suspected though one big reveal I did suspect. I look forward to more stories about Bird and her friends in the small town of Foghorn and I really want to know more about grandma’s mysterious past. Highly recommended. ~~ Stephanie L Bannon

For more titles by Beth Cato click here