Murder at the Agency is a debut novel by Kylie Forsythe, a cozy mystery about a new employee at an advertising agency who finds one of her coworkers dead.
Cassie Blayne is unemployed and looking for work. While pitching her ideas to a friend, an owner of an advertising agency overhears her. He offers to interview her for a position at his company, Turner and Nash. Cassie nails the interview, starts her new job, and makes a few friends and enemies. Within Cassie’s initial weeks of employment, someone is murdered in the agency, and she becomes the lead suspect.
Murder at the Agency has that cozy mystery vibe so important in a book in a series. It has charming characters, minimal off-page violence, and a good dose of small town charm. The Brighton Lake setting is a spot-on replica of a northern Midwest town, especially vibrant in the autumn and early winter. A cozy offering always benefits from a small level of threat, and Murder at the Agency has this as well. The increasing level of danger Cassie finds herself in is a strong point of the novel.
Despite a few minor technical issues, the book has a solid mystery structure. The characters are lined up, the murder happens, the wrong person is accursed, and amateur sleuthing occurs. Suspects are listed, investigated, and crossed off. Cassie makes the usual mistakes of an amateur investigator, and the police caution her about “getting involved.” A few subplots introduce a bit of romance into the novel, always welcome in a cozy. This novel was an entertaining, breezy read, never lagging. Overall, a well-designed debut book in what I hope will be a series.
Murder at the Agency has all the elements a cozy mystery reader is looking for in a novel: a charming main character, an engaging setting, and suspenseful passages. This series is off to a good start, and I hope we’ll see more mysteries in Brighton Lake.