annieb123's Review of Board to Death (A Board Game Shop Mystery, #1)

by C J Connor

The first in an ulta-charming new “quozy” mystery series starring Ben Rosencrantz, a queer 30-something English professor (and closet scifi fan) who’s returned to his hometown of Salt Lake City to run his family’s board game shop in the trendy Sugar House neighborhood – a community hotspot for players of all ages…and for killer collectors!

Back in his hometown of Sugar House running his family’s board game shop and café, Ben Rosencrantz just can’t seem to get his life to pass go, much less collect $200. Once he was a happily married English professor in Seattle. Now he’s a divorced caregiver, looking after his ill father and a Chihuahua named Beans while still figuring out the rules of retail management. At least the town has become more LGBTQ+ friendly than when Ben was a teenager—and that flower shop owner, Ezra McCaslin, enjoys flirting with him.

But despite his usual clientele of gamers, Ben is barely earning enough to keep the store running and stay on top of his father’s medical bills. Then a local toy and game collector named Clive offers him a winning strategy—to purchase a turn-of-the-twentieth-century edition of The Landlord’s Game, the realty and taxation game that inspired Monopoly, at a tenth of the rare edition’s true value. Suspicious of Clive’s shady, low-priced deal, Ben turns the offer down.

Then Clive turns up dead at the front door of Ben’s and a backpack full of $100 bills appears on his doorstep. Now Ben is the #1 suspect in Clive’s death, and unless he and Ezra can prove his innocence and find the real killer, he’ll go to jail for murder—and no amount of double dice rolls will set him free . . .

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

Board to Death is the first book in a shopfront cozy by CJ Connor. Released 22nd Aug 2023 by Kensington, it's 240 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.

This is an engaging start to a shopfront cozy mystery. These series are often set in food or book related businesses: pizza parlors, bakeries, coffee shops, cheese shops, bookstores, libraries, antiquarian shops, and all the other hundreds of variations in the subgenre. This one, refreshingly, is populated by offbeat, nerdy, and appealing characters who populate an old-school board game shop outside of Salt Lake City.

The characterizations are well rendered and appealing, many of them academics or allied fields, and full of appealingly offbeat book and games lovers. It would have been so easy to fill the book with lampoonable table flipping aggressive neck-bearded stereotypes and the author has (happily) managed to avoid all the "easy shots".

The mystery itself is competently constructed, with a satisfying denouement and resolution. The second volume in the series, Killer Cube, is foreshadowed but no definite publishing schedule info is currently available.

There are LGBTQIA+ characters central to the story and they're treated respectfully and sensitively, and happily the entire story does *not* turn on that one facet. The author/publisher have also included discussion questions for book-club or reader discussion.

Four stars. Quite well written and enjoyable cozy. It would be a good choice for public library acquisition, book club discussion, and possibly a buddy read.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Reading updates

24 March, 2024: Started reading

24 March, 2024: Finished reading

24 March, 2024: Reviewed