Mum's the Word by Kate Collins

Released: 2004

Kate Collins' Mum's the Word is a cozy flower-shop mystery featuring Abby Knight, law school dropout and owner of Bloomers flower shop. Abby's canary-yellow vintage Corvette is the victim of a hit-and-run outside her flower shop, which is then found out to be a link to a local murder happening around the same time. Abby teams up with bar-owner and hottie Marco Salvare, who is also a former cop, to solve the mystery around Abby's dinged Corvette and the murder.


Abby Knight is an enjoyable character and funny at most times, but I find her to be comparable to the heroines in similar cozy-mystery themed series. As far as the complexity of solving the mystery itself, it is more pertinent for readers to solve the "hows" and "whys" behind the murder since we already know who the team players are. The climax surrounding the perp's capture of Abby at the end when she figures everything out falls into the typical cozy mystery formula, but is fun all the same.

I'm not convinced I'll be reading more of Kate Collins' flower-shop series in the future due to its redundancy and similarity to other cozy mysteries, but it is still very enjoyable, and will speedily help pass the time!