MWSA Review

Hive and Seek: A Backyard Beekeeping Mystery by Rebecca O’Bea fulfills all the requirements for a cozy mystery: amateur sleuth, violence happening offstage, small community, quirky characters. Rebecca O'Bea does all that in her book, and as a fan of cozies, I dove right in.

Indigo Blue Evans finds her former professor dead, covered in honeybees, near her hives in Colette, Kansas. Due to circumstantial evidence, Indigo is immediately blamed for the professor’s demise and is determined to prove herself innocent. Enter Sean Riordan, interim sheriff: tall, dark, handsome, and emitting just the right pheromones to catch Indigo’s attention. He discovers that Indigo’s bees did not kill the man, identified as Professor Bob Fontenot, but a blow to the head with a brick did. Indigo remains the number one person of interest because of a falling out with Professor Bob over an accusation of plagiarism on her graduate thesis.

More determined than ever, Indigo involves her wacky family and bizarre group of friends to assist in clearing her name, and to find out who committed the crime. I wanted more in-depth character development, but I giggled at the antics of the non-professional crime solving, and I learned a lot about bee keeping as I read Hive and Seek.  Several red herrings had me guessing who the perpetrator was until the very end. Kudos to the author.

Review by Nancy Panko (January 2024)
 

Author's Synopsis

It’s a body! More precisely––the body of a man dressed in a white beekeeping suit, lying perfectly still.

“Karl! The bees––they’re all over his face!”

In the small town of Colette, Kansas, murder is practically unheard of. So, when novice beekeeper and washed-out graduate student Indigo Evans discovers the dead body of her former professor covered with honeybees, she becomes a suspect. With the aid of her family, friends, and new acquaintances, plus a cat with an attitude, Indie finds herself thrust into the role of a beekeeping detective.

To solve the mystery of the professor’s death, Indie must work alongside the handsome new sheriff in town, who is determined to push her away from the investigation.

Will Indie and her zany crew solve the case before the killer strikes again? Be prepared for intrigue and a laugh-out-loud caper as you follow the buzz in Hive and Seek, the debut novel of The Backyard Beekeeping Mystery series.

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Fiction—Mystery/Thriller/Crime

Number of Pages: 181

Word Count: 63,000