Today the Chicks are pleased to host the 2024 nominees for the Lefty Award for Best Humorous Mystery (to be awarded on April 13 at Left Coast Crime: Seattle Shakedown), two of whom just happen to be members of Chicks on the Case!

Since the award is for books that are on the light side and/or humorous, we’ve asked each nominee to provide a short excerpt from their nominated book which they deem representative of that description, as well as one from a book by someone else which they found to be good fun.

So take it away, Lefty nominees! And congratulations to you all!

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JENNIFER J. CHOW

Nominated Book: Hot Pot Murder

“Here’s what I’m envisioning,” Celine said. While my cousin loved her food shots on Instagram the most, I could see her creative brain working as she laid out her Thanksgiving design plan. She wanted to decorate the tabletops with scented spice candles, arrange a line of painted pumpkins along the counter, and pin a garland of colorful walnuts against a wall.

“How do you know so much about Thanksgiving anyway?” I said. “Isn’t it an American holiday?”

“I live in Hong Kong,” she said, “not Antarctica.”

“We’re not even having turkey per tradition,” I said as I shook my head at Nik.

“News flash,” he said. “Nobody likes turkey.”

“I like turkey,” I said, grabbing several orange candles and bunching them together on a table.

Jesse Q. Sutanto, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers:

“Destiny, Vera thinks, is something to be hunted down and grabbed tightly with both hands and shaken until it gives her exactly what she wants.”

Jennifer J. Chow enjoys doing foodie research for her culinary cozies, which include the L.A. Night Market and Magical Fortune Cookie series.

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LEE MATTHEW GOLDBERG

Nominated Book: The Great Gimmelmans

When I was a little kid, like eight or so, I’d stand in front of a mirror and ask myself, “Who is Aaron Nicholas Gimmelman?” I knew I was me, of course, and that I loved basketball and the Knicks, specifically Patrick Ewing who won NBA Rookie of the Year despite his injuries. I hated milk with the passion of a thousand fiery suns after being forced to squeeze a cow’s udders on a school farm trip. I thought Hebrew school was definitely the worst, since my bar mitzvah seemed a million years and a shit ton of work away. I always had a cow lick that no amount of gel could tamper, and my ears curved out enough for my Grandma Bernice down in Florida to shame my mother into taping them back when I was a baby.

David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day

“For as long as I can remember, my father saved. He saves money, he saves disfigured sticks that resemble disfigured celebrities, and most of all, he saves food. Cherry tomatoes, sausage biscuits, the olives plucked from other people’s martinis—he hides these things in strange places until they are rotten. And then he eats them.”

Lee Matthew Goldberg is the author of 14 awfully disturbing novels with a funny one in the bunch, The Great Gimmelmans.

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LESLIE KARST

Nominated Book: A Sense for Murder

In this scene, Sally Solari—along with her pal, English lit professor Allison—have gone into the kitchen of a local restaurant to meet the head chef, Kamila:

“Nice set-up,” I remarked. “And I love the yellow KitchenAid—it’s almost the exact same color as my car.”

“Perhaps we should introduce them,” said Kamila with a laugh. “Though Gertrude can be quite snobbish about her pedigree, so you may not approve of the match.”

“Well, my T-Bird can be rather temperamental when she wants, so perhaps they’d be perfect together.” Hands on hips, I gazed admiringly at the shiny yellow-and-chrome mixer. “And now you’ve made me wonder why I’ve never given a name to my car.”

“Gertrude pretty much named herself. It just popped into my head the first time I used her, as I was whipping up a batch of German spritz cookies.”

“I like it,” said Allison. “Though if she’s anything like her name-sake in Hamlet, I’d be cautious about letting her spend too much time with your T-Bird, Sally.”

Jane Lasswell Hoff, Bones of Banyan Drive, set in Hilo, Hawai‘i and featuring forensic anthropologist Mimi Charles (excerpt edited for space purposes):

“You up yet? Your voice sounds—”

“I’m fine,” I tried to snap that answer, but John was right. Due to the vestiges of a cold, my voice sounded like Winston Churchill at the end of the war.

“All right,” he said slowly. “Then there’s a head in a tree.”

“A whole head? Does it have skin and hair on it?”

“No. It’s just a cranium. Hang on.”

I heard the scraping, shuffling sounds of the cell phone being passed from hand to hand, then another male voice—this one even deeper, and with a Hawaiian softness to it—said, “Mimi?”

“Sam. John says you’ve got a head in a tree.”

“No, you’ve got a head in a tree,” he said. “You and John. I’ve got two autopsies scheduled today. How soon do you think you can get here?”

Leslie Karst is the author of Molten Death, the Sally Solari mysteries, and Justice is Served: A Tale of Scallops, the Law, and Cooking for RBG. When not writing, you’ll find her cooking, cycling, gardening, and observing cocktail hour promptly at five o’clock.

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CATRIONA McPHERSON

Nominated Book: Hop Scot

In this book, the Last Ditch crew have Christmas back in Lexy’s (and my) homeland and the shoe is on the other foot for once. Lexy is very rude about America, you see. Here, she’s talking to her best friend about the fact that everything is cinnamon-flavoured for the holidays:

“I don’t get it. You’ve got such great taste eleven mo- Wait, no. You like pumpkin spice chai latte. You’ve got such great taste ten mo- Hang on, I just remembered Peeps. Okay for nine months a year, you’ve got impeccable taste, Todd. What happens to you at Christmastime?”

But when they get to Scotland . . .

“For the rest of the day,” my mum said, as she cleared plates, “I think you should all take it easy and recover from the gruelling trip.”

“How about recovering from the gruelling lunch?” Todd muttered. He had never experienced Scotch Broth before. It was a lot of mutton fat and barley for a Californian. It didn’t help that Baby Diego had called it “crotch broth”, an innocent mistake but one that got such a big laugh he said it ten more times until even I had had to put my spoon down.  

Joshua Moehling’s Where the Dead Sleep is Book 2 of a series about a gay acting-sheriff in rural Minnesota. It’s exciting and touching and very funny. Here’s Ben talking to the office secretary, Kelly, about whether to run for real-sheriff:

[Kelly] “You can have my foot in your ass if you don’t get upstairs and file these papers by 3pm.”

Packard peeled another Post-it note, pretended to lick the end of his pen. “I’m just gonna make a quick note for your annual review … threatened to put her foot in my ass …”

“Just do what I said.”

“Fails to understand the department reporting structure …”

They go on this way for a while and I laughed all the way through.

Catriona McPherson is the author of historical detective stories and contemporary suspense novels, all of these set in her native Scotland, and a series of comic mysteries set in the Last Ditch Motel, in California.

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CINDY SAMPLE

Nominated Book: Dying for a Decoration

I ran down the crowded festival street in hot pursuit of my suspect whom I finally spotted close to Shorty’s Donuts booth. I sped up, but they whirled around just as I was closing in.

Splat. I was under attack. By donuts! Frosted ones. Cinnamon ones. Miniature powdered-sugar donuts. Over a dozen of them hurled at me by my target, who could have signed on with the San Francisco Giants.

The donuts knocked the velvet bonnet off my head and powdered sugar clung to my curls. And my eyelashes.

I ripped off my long Victorian-era skirt and dumped it in a trash can. A man dressed in a black duster and ten-gallon hat whistled at me as he strode by. Luckily, instead of the pantaloons that originally came with the costume, I’d chosen to wear a pair of navy leggings underneath for warmth. Far better for chasing after surly suspects.

Heather Haven’s Bewitched, Bothered, and Beheaded

“This wasn’t my fault,” I said.

“It never is.”

The volume of his voice had lowered but he still ground his teeth together. My dentist has told me to never do that, but I didn’t feel it was the time to mention that.

“Honest, Frank!” For emphasis, I grabbed at the bars with scratched and dirt-covered hands, ending with decimated fingernails. Needless to say, although I will say it, the condition of my nails would probably seal my fate with my manicurist, who is never happy with the ten I present her, at the best of times.

Frank continued, “Resisting arrest—”

“I wasn’t resisting arrest. I was trying to catch a suspect.”

“Fleeing the scene of a crime—”

“I wasn’t fleeing. I was trying to catch—”

“And finally, murder.”

“I didn’t murder anybody. How come nobody thinks of it as an unspeakably horrid accident?”

Cindy Sample is the award-winning and national bestselling author of the nine-book Laurel McKay Humorous Mystery series and the Spindrift Cove Mystery series.

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WENDALL THOMAS

Nominated Book: Cheap Trills

In the wake of Eat, Pray, Love, travel agent Cyd Redondo is bombarded with requests for trips to Bali from her senior citizen clients:

I was tired of explaining that Bali, though stunning, had suffered two terrorist attacks, had a serious drink spiking problem, and boasted three active volcanos. Three. Although I appreciated that many of my older clients would be happy to go out doing something they loved, I’m not sure that included melting. To calm myself, I checked on a few clients who were mid-trip. Pete and Hattie Murphy were doing the “plaintains” eating tour of Miami, before their arteries gave out, while the Olafsons were on one of the increasingly popular “Naturist” (i.e. nudist) tours of the Bahamas. Of course, they insisted on sending videos of themselves playing golf, which gave a whole new meaning to the term “swing.” When I’d asked if they were ever self-conscious, they said “At our age, who gives a flying fudge?” I could see their point. Sadly, I couldn’t unsee it.

Raymond Chandler’s Farewell My Lovely:

My favorite comic writer is Carl Hiassen, but every quote I wanted to post was “cozy-averse,” so here’s something from my second favorite wit

“I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.”

Wendall Thomas writes the Anthony, Macavity, and four time Lefty-nominated Cyd Redondo screwball mystery series, and her short fiction appears in several crime anthologies. She also teaches in the Graduate Film School at UCLA and lectures internationally on screenwriting.  

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Readers: Do you have any favorite light-hearted/humorous books you’d care to share with us?