Having solved a murder when they moved to Winthrop for a break/healing, bestselling author Tess Harrow and her teenage daughter Gertrude (Gertie) have decided to stay permanently. Now that they've made some updates to their cabin in the woods, they're renovating the hardware store that Tess inherited and converting it into the town's first independent bookstore. Tess is in the basement (under a trapdoor) tied to a chair researching how long it would take to escape for an upcoming book. Upstairs, they are swinging sledge hammers and the floor begins to collapse. The next thing Tess knows, she is almost buried under dirt and bones. Renovations halt and Tess finds herself trying to convince the townsfolk that her grandfather was not a murderer. Cold cases are difficult to solve, so Tess calls in a fellow author of horror, to help her out. Who is the victim and who killed nd buried him/her in the floor of her grandfather's store?

In the last book, we found out the Nicki, the librarian, is actually an undercover FBI agent investigation a money laundering situation. Being law enforcement, I know understand how she was able to help in the last book. This cold case seems to overlap with her case, so once again she jumps in to assist. Gertie has become my favourite character in this series. She is smart, willing to try just about anything, yet still a teenager. With her mother's profession, it is not a surprise to see her doing work experience in the local morgue. There are new characters introduced and I wasn't sure about them. I am seeing some chemistry developing between Tess and Sheriff Boyd, and am pretty sure there will be romance in future books. Their dialogue has a lot of innuendo mixed in with their banter. As the clues are laid out, the case became a bit twisty and I had no idea who the culprit was. When another body is found, it is even more important to Tess and Gertie to find the real murderer. The ending took me by surprise and that may not have been a good thing. I know these are humorous cozies, but this one had just a bit too much even for me, but I will still read the next book, as I really enjoyed the first one.

Tess is one of the most fun & kooky lead characters in a cozy series & I absolutely adore her for it. Being a mystery author herself she knows many crime related things & they come in handy, seeing as she literally falls into crime scenes. Her friendship with Nikki (an undercover FBI agent) & her teenage daughter Gertrude, are such a positive addition. They are all strong, multifaceted women & each get their time to shine.

This mystery is even more engrossing than the first. There’s multiple bodies from different times. I really enjoy cold cases being solved. And a lot of plot involving writing & Tess’ friend, Peter, another author, which I really enjoyed. I had no idea where the solution was going & it was such a wonderful lead up to it.

Plus (no pun intended here) the opening lines in this series are killer! They grab you right away & force you to keep reading. This was a great book to kick off 2023, I’m so glad I started with it. The third book is out in May & I can’t wait.

On Spine of Death is the latest release in the By the Book Mystery series by the very talented Tamara Berry. I loved visiting the small town of Winthrop again and all of its very unique, lovable and unforgettable characters. I just love the interactions between Tess and her teenage daughter, Gertie and of course those between Tess and the sheriff as well. They are just so entertaining, funny, and sometimes quirky that you can’t help but love them and root for them. Will Tess figure out who the serial killer is before she becomes the latest victim? Is the killer someone hiding in plain sight? Read On Spine of Death to find out.
It grabbed me from the very first sentence and refused to let me go until the very end. I loved every quirky detail and can’t wait for more in the next installment in this remarkable series. Tamara Berry definitely has another winner on her hands with On Spine of Death.

Another solid entry in this series. An intriguing mystery that is not easy to solve, coupled with great characters and humor (but not too silly) make for a really fun read.

Princess Fuzzypants here: Bestselling novelist Tess not only can write a good crime story, she has the chops to solve crimes too. Sometimes the crimes come very close to home. As she is renovating the old hardware store her grandfather bequeathed her, two bodies are discovered under the floor. Once the bones are identified, the question becomes who put them there. Some of the possible suspects are people Tess loves. Then the bones are stolen and there is a whole other mystery to solve. A third body shows up and the perp is anybody’s guess.

The murderer is very clever. Frame jobs are rife and Tess is no nearer finding the truth. Even with the help of a love-sick but hunky FBI agent who is undercover as well as her friend Nicki and police chief Victor things just get murkier and murkier. This story has layers upon layers and until each one is pierced, the real villain does not emerge. It is a very entertaining ride. I enjoyed Tess’ first outing and I enjoyed this one even more. I hope there are lots to come. Five purrs and two paws up.

I enjoyed this one more than the first book in the series. The mystery on this one kept my attention more than the first one. I did not see the guilty party coming. It was a complete surprise. I have to say that Gertie the heroine's teenage daughter is my favorite character and I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.

On Spine of Death

by Tamara Berry

Tess, a thriller writer, believes in using real life as an inspiration for her fiction. Sometimes that means investigating real murders that happen in her newly adopted small hometown, even on her own property. She also sets up scenarios to see if a situation is possible even if not probable. She is quite successful and has been able to renovate (i.e. make livable) a cabin she inherited from her grandfather. Newly divorced, she lives there with her teenage daughter Gertrude. In this book there are an assortment of interesting characters including two undercover FBI agents: Nikki who acts as a bookmobile librarian and Jared, a strapping young man who works construction for Tess as she tries to transform her grandfather’s wreck of a hardware store into a bookstore. Jared doesn’t do well as an undercover agent because he can’t “lie his way out of a paper bag.”

It is during the demolition of parts of the store that skeletons are discovered. Judging from similar hatchet marks on the bodies, it seems there has been a serial killer at work. The plot takes off from there as the story becomes more and more complicated. It appears the murderer has returned and is trying to frame either Tess’ family or the sheriff.

Woven through the mystery there is a lot of humor in situation and dialogue. There is also some romance and sabre rattling as Jared and Sheriff Boyd are both attracted to Tess.

The ending is dramatic and full of action. There is resolution of the mysteries but also a hook to make the reader want to read of Tess’ next adventures which will assuredly include some of both the romantic and investigative varieties. She may even find time to reach some of her publisher’s deadlines for her next book. Be ready to suspend reality and enjoy some over the top humorous situations in On Spine of Death.

I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Rating: 5/5

Category: Mystery

Notes: #2 in the By the Book Mystery Series. I recommend reading this series from the beginning rather than trying to read this book as a standalone. It is a series where you will benefit from meeting the characters and watching their relationships develop.

Publication: November 29, 2022—Poisoned Pen Press

Memorable Lines:

She also knew that the more exhausted the sheriff was, the more likely he was to cave. That was a trick Gertrude used all the time. Requests for increases to her allowance always occurred with greater frequency whenever Tess was approaching a deadline.

There was no telling how or why rumors spread so quickly in a place like this, where social media existed mostly in the form of the church calling tree and chance encounters at the grocery store, but there was no denying that they did. No one went so far as to throw stones at her or start waving pitchforks in her face, but the hostility was palpable.

Tess had always assumed that hackers were social misfits, living off Mountain Dew and whole bags of Doritos in the dark. A humorous hacker who could manipulate her like playing a drum opened up a whole new world of possibilities.

I really enjoyed the first book in this series and this one did not disappoint. Tess is doing renovations on her grandfather's hardware store and discovers some old bones. Thanks to some help from an old friend they realize the murders are similar to murders in a mystery novel. Tess and the gang set out to solve the crimes with the help of the sheriff. I really enjoy the characters and the small town setting. The book business and writer background is well done. The mystery was good but there were not a lot of suspects. I was able to figure it out. This series should be read in order. It was a quick fun read. I am looking for word to reading Book 3 Enjoy

On Spine of Death by Tamara Berry (By the Book Mysteries #2) 4 stars

A great follow up to last years “Buried By the Book”, Tess Harrow and her daughter Gertrude are embroiled in another homicide. While renovating her family’s old hardware store into a bookstore a body literally drops on Tess’s head (it fell out of the ceiling). Now Tess must now redeem her family’s reputation and solve a cold case.
I love the interaction between Tess and her daughter. It turns out Gertrude is in the perfect position to keep abreast of the official investigation through her internship at the morgue. A great mystery with funny dialogue – I wouldn’t compare it Donna Andrews or David Rosenfelt, but the humor is an important part of the book. I look forward to next year’s entry – Murder Off the Books.

Thank you Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this ARC.

Thank you to @Netgalley for the ARC of On Spine of Death, book 2 in the By the Book Mysteries by Tamara Berry. Published at the end of November, On Spine of Death is an excellent continuation of a fun book-ish cozy mystery series.

I love the mother-daughter relationship between Tess and her teen daughter Gertrude and the small town of Winthrop. I’m excited that Tess is working to convert her grandfather’s hardware store to a bookstore and the mystery that was unveiled certainly put Tess’s Amateur detective skills to great use.

There’s great suspense, some great humor and a little bit of romance. Looking forward to book 3!

This is such an excellent follow-up to the first book in Tamara Berry's By The Book series. The chaotic energy that Tess and her daughter bring to Winthrop is brilliant, and the mystery is just as entangled as the one in Buried in a Good Book. There are many pleasant changed, however, keeping Berry's readers on their toes. This time around the mystery involves cold cases, missing persons that open old wounds. The relationship between Tess and the town's sheriff deepens as well, as both of them get to know each other even better and trust each other even more. I appreciated the balance of serious sleuthing and humorous mishaps. This is a modern cozy that plays on classic cozy mystery tropes without beating them to death, and as someone who is very selective with the cozies she enjoys, I am obsessed with this series. Looking forward to book 3, and I will most certainly be recommending this to fellow avid readers.

This is definitely not your typical cozy mystery series. Querkier, darker and fresh, On Spine of Death is the second book in a series that follows a mystery writer named Tess Harrow who's moved to a small town in the Washington mountains with her teenage daughter, Gertrude.
This story surrounds the discovery of not one, but two sets of bones in Tess' grandfather's old hardware store.
Was her grandfather a serial killer? Tess needs to find out (plus she could use the distraction from writing her next novel).
The story has fbi agents, hackers, stolen bones, ANOTHER BODY!, missing people, and more than one romance.
Lots of fun and lots of mystery. I thoroughly enjoyed this read.

I enjoyed this small town, cozy mystery! The algorithm was the typical cozy and the cover had me hooked when I first was reviewing. I enjoyed the quirky characters and the town, the theming, etc.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Read if you like:
- bookish cozy mystery
- quirky small town characters
- long chapters

Tess is innocently doing some renovations on her grandfather’s old hardware store (turning it into her lifelong dream of a bookstore), when she stumbles upon some very human looking bones buried in the floorboards (or should I stay they stumble upon HER 🤪) And then another, fresher one. AND THEN ANOTHER ONE!! People begin speculating (obviously) that her grandfather must have been a serial killer! There’s no way he would be stupid enough to hide the bodies beneath his own store though… would he??

This is a little different than your typical cozy mystery, because there are multiple murders and a possible serial killer! It made it a little more exciting to read having those extra pieces to put together.
I always like when there is some romance sprinkled into a mystery; it gives it that little extra excitement when reading.
I’m such a nerd, but I love reading books about books! 🤓🤓 It honestly makes my heart feel warm and fuzzy when I read about bookstores 🤪
The only thing I didn’t like about this book was how many times the phrase ‘Let Sleeping Dogs Lie” was used. It was so overkill it’s not even funny.
I would recommend this book to any lover of cozy mysteries that wants to be entertained reading a bookstore serial killer mystery.

The By the Book mystery series began earlier this year with Buried in a Good Book, and I knew right away the series was going to be a winner Author Tamara Berry is on a roll, with On Spine of Death, the second in the series, already on the shelves. Tess Harrow is our protagonist, and her teenaged daughter, Gertrude, helps more than she hinders, while also keeping us entertained.

The premise here is that while renovating and remodeling her late grandfather’s hardware store, multiple sets of human remains are unearthed. It’s hard enough to be accepted into a small town, but now half of its denizens are convinced that her granddad was a serial killer! Now Tess is on a mission to find out whose bones those are, and how they got there.

There are tropes here that usually make me cranky. We’ve got the hot-for-sheriff trope, and the must-clear-my-name (or that of a loved one) trope, but it’s testament to Berry’s authorial chops that I don’t think about either of them much until the book is over. Her droll humor and nicely turned out characters keep the pages turning. This is a series that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and that’s just what I need sometimes.

I recommend this clever little cozy mystery to anyone needing a break from the world around us, along with a good chuckle, and I look forward to the next in the series.

When I selected this book I didn't realize it was the 2nd book in a series. It turned out to be a suspenseful read. Not quite "edge of your seat' but worth reading. Tess, the main character, is a thriller writer who needs to make a change in her life. She is a single parent of a teenaged daughter. She moves to Washington State to the over the family hardware store, which she turns into a bookstore. During renovations, a skeleton is uncovered. Actually not just one. Now Tess must figure out if her grandfather was a murderer or if not, who is and why the bodies were stashed in his hardware store. The local sheriff isn't much help, so she plunges headlong into the mystery. Overall, a good read if you like cozy mysteries. I love the bookstore aspect also.

On Spine of Death by Tamara Berry is the second book in her By the Book Mysteries series.

Another great read in this series, and eventhough it is only the second installment it has already showed so much promise.
I like both the main and side characters, the continually develop and grow and in every book we find out more and more about them.
I also enjoy mystery within mystery trope. Even though one mystery gets solved in each book, the main mystery still has to be figured out. This combination brings more suspense and intrigue and adds to the drama.

I would like to see a bit of a romantic angle development, I think it would be interesting to see how that affects the rest of the story. I believe it would probably spike the humor level that is already present in this series, which is another part of it that I immensely enjoy.

Highly recommended and I can't wait for the next installment

Tess and Gertrude have settled in and now Tess is renovating her grandfather’s shop into a bookstore. Helping her friend out she has an undercover FBI agent working as her construction worker. While Tess is working on a story, construction goes on above her until bones from a dead body falls upon her. As they search, they find more bones in the shop. What follows is working a case from years ago that was never solved. Some small towns are more mysterious than you think.
Goodreads

Best-selling author Tess Harrow is busy renovating the dilapidated general store she inherited from her grandfather while also conducting research for her latest novel. Always one to kill two birds with one stone, she figures she can get her teenage daughter Gertrude to leave her tied to a chair in the store’s suitably creepy basement while their handyman works overhead. Despite the skepticism of Gertie (and the handyman, and pretty much everyone else whom she’s told this idea,) Tess is sure that she, like the character she’s envisioning for her next novel, can escape her bonds in a timely manner, at least until an unexpected problem rears its head:

QUOTE
[“]I wasn’t counting on rats,” Tess muttered as she started to once again saw her wrists against a sharp edge at the back of the chair. “No one said anything about rats.”

Even as she spoke, she knew that the woman in her book–codename Magdalene–would be encountering rats inside her prison. Tess Harrow, renowned thriller writer, was something of a legend when it came to using real-life incidents to fuel her fiction. Her last book, <i>Fury In The Forest</i> had been based on her own experience finding a dead body in the pond behind the rustic cabin she now called home. The book was already in its sixth printing and showed no sign of flagging.
END QUOTE

Tess is about to get a lot more fodder for her writing than expected though, when the basement ceiling suddenly falls in on her. While she isn’t quite buried in the debris, something else certainly was. <i>Someones</i> else, rather, as not just one but two full sets of human bones rain down on her with the rubble.

When the bodies are identified as belonging to women who went missing from Winthrop years earlier, the town rumor mill starts churning at full speed, spreading the word that Tess’ grandfather was a serial killer. Sheriff Victor Boyd, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the hero of Tess’ books except in the crucial matter of being professional to a fault, wants her to leave the detective work entirely up to himself and the rest of the local police. Luckily, the rather morbid Gertie already has plans to take up an internship in a place where she can help her mother stay up to date with any developments in the case:

QUOTE
Tess knew it behooved her, as an involved and loving parent who only wanted what was best for her daughter, to put up a fight. There were too many potential horrors in a place like the morgue, too many ways for Gertrude’s life to be irrevocably altered.

But when she spoke, it wasn’t to berate the girl.

“Gertie, do you have any idea what this means?”

Gertrude grinned. When she smiled like that, the sunshine radiating as if out of her soul, Tess knew that nothing in the world could be as bad as it seemed. “It means you have an inside man at the morgue[,” her daughter said].
END QUOTE

Ordinarily, this mother-daughter team-up would be a nearly unstoppable force, but it’s only when their old family friend, acclaimed horror writer Peter Oblonsky, drops everything to come stay with them that they really start making progress on the case. He’s quick to point out the similarities between what they’ve uncovered and the plot of a book Tess once blurbed. She’s somewhat embarrassed to admit that she never actually found time to read the novel she was promoting, but once she finally does, she can’t deny the parallels. Worse, if the book is to be taken as a guide to what’s happening in Winthrop, it indicates that the sheriff has a much closer tie to the murders than anyone anticipated, a tie that could change the burgeoning romantic relationship between Tess and Victor forever.

Tamara Berry is one of my favorite cozy writers, and this second installment in her By The Book mystery series only cements that status. The themes of this mystery are cleverly woven throughout the clue-sprinkled narrative, as Tess expands her circle of friends and confidants (and co-conspirators) in her quest to find the killer, clear her grandfather’s name, and protect the man she’s growing to love. The hint of paranormal activity was also perfectly done, and I absolutely loved the introduction of himbo Jake. Funny, smart and moving, On Spine Of Death is a terrific addition to Ms Berry’s oeuvre. I can’t wait to read more.

I liked the forensic science details. Peter Oblonsky and Gertrude Harrow are my favorite characters. I wasn't sure who the killer was. The murder mystery was interesting.

I received an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley for an honest review.