Review: Button Holed by Kylie Logan

Button Holed by Kylie Logan

Series: Button Box Mystery, #1

Berkley

September 2011

Format: Paperback, 264 pages

Source: Personal copy

In
a big-picture world, it’s the little things that appeal to button
dealer Josie Giancola. There’s history in every button. There’s art, and
craft, and style. There might be clues to murder, too.

Working

out of her button shop in a Chicago brownstone, Josie Giancola has
quietly become one of the country’s leading experts on buttons – antique
buttons, jeweled buttons, artistic buttons. Her reputation
draws a Hollywood starlet to the Button Box to shop for one-of-a-kind
buttons for her made-to-order wedding gown.

But after the
Button Box is ransacked and the actress murdered, Josie’s cozy world is
thrown into chaos. Homicide detective Nevin Riley is looking to her for
clues, starting with the murder weapon – an antique buttonhook. But a
killer has other ideas, like keeping Josie’s lips buttoned
up…permanently.

My thoughts: This is the first in Kylie Logan’s Button Box Mystery series and it was a great introduction in what looks to be a fun cozy series. I love cozy mysteries and love the unique fields that they each focus on – this time on button collecting. Who knew someone could be an authority on buttons!

A big part of why I love cozy mysteries is that the murder is glossed over – it happens, but there’s no gore involved. The amateur sleuth finds herself in the middle of the investigation and ends up solving the case before the men in blue. While I do like reading psychological thrillers and mysteries, I find these cozy mysteries to be like a breath of fresh air – they’re usually pretty light and quick reads. I also find that sometimes I’m able to figure out who-dun-it and sometimes I’m not.

In the case of Button Holed, the murder happens in Josie’s new shop – she’s just opened and it seems she’s had nothing but trouble. First, her shop is ransacked and then a client is found murdered in the shop. Lucky for her, her neighbor is a retired cop. Unlucky for her, the lead detective on the case is a man she went on a blind date with that didn’t exactly go well…or is it really that unlucky after all?

In this first installment, we meet a whole cast of characters and I’m looking forward to getting to know some of them better as the series progresses. There’s the potential of a new romance brewing for Josie that I’m interested in seeing play out and then there’s her ex-husband who just won’t seem to stay away.

I also find the whole field of button collecting quite fascinating. I never really thought about how important it might be the have just the right button for movie costumes but it seems Josie is the expert when it comes to all things buttons!

Books in the series:

1. Button Holed
2. Hot Button
3. Panic Button