Gemma Halliday Publishing, $0.99
Cozy Mystery, 2015

Just like with urban fantasy series, I tend to avoid cozy mysteries because of being burned out by the formula. There are so only many quirky cat ladies lusting after hot cops while being surrounded by dotty old people that I can take without wanting to sacrifice a few cows to Azathoth to bring about the end of the universe, 

Still, I take a tentative dip into Kelly Rey’s Mistletoe & Misdemeanors because it’s cheap and… oh my god, the formula.

Jamie Winters is 30, single and letting the reader know about it very clearly from the beginning, and lusting after the resident hunk, this time her landlord. Oh, and there are old people and a surly teenager running around the place. 

Here, she is babysitting the hot landlord’s niece, that teenager, while looking into the disappearance of an old bloke that lives next door. Oh, there’s a dangerous vehicle on the road too, this time an El Camino.

There are plenty of “jokes” about people’s less than attractive physical features as well as old people needing colonoscopy and what not. Well, the joke is on the author, as colon cancer is on the rise these days even among non-octogenarians. 

Sure, this one is an alright read, but everything feels so stale and played, I don’t even crack a small smile even once. If anything, this is a novella so I’m more amazed at how the author manages to pack so many things in here that are formulaic and overdone in such a short length.

Indeed, if this hadn’t been published in 2015, I would have suspected that Kelly Rey is a pseudonym of that bestselling blockbuster maker Chad G Pretty!

It’s fine to read this one, so long as one doesn’t mind getting the same stuff all over again without any cursory heating up or garnishing to make things feel less generic and forgettable.