I thought I'd like this book since I enjoy mysteries. I think it's probably written for a young audience (maybe 10-12 year olds) and it simply failed to hold my interest. The story takes place in a small resort skiing village where 2 sisters run their family bookstore. A visitor turns up dead under mysterious circumstances and the sisters, who are great Agatha Christie fans and happen to have the last name of Christie, become involved in trying to solve the murder. I found the character development to be a bit simplistic. There also seemed to be an inordinate amount of references and time spent on their cat. I would recommend this book to those who enjoy reading Nancy Drew or similar books. #netgalley #deadandgondola

A book store in Colorado, a new police Chief, a charming mountain town and a main character who had come home to work. When a strange man enters the store looking for someone and dies, it's up to El and Meg to don their sleuthing powers to work! Loved the story. Great characters! Good pace and story plot! Thanks #netgalley and #RandomHousePublishingGroup and #Ballantine for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are mine.

Dead and Gondola is a perfect cozy snow day mystery! El Christie is running her family’s bookshop in a tiny Colorado town when a murder occurs and everyone she knows is a suspect. I loved the cozy atmosphere of this book, I even ended up baking cookies to eat while I read! The parallels to an Agatha Christie novel and the blatant callouts to red herrings and other plot devices were a really cute addition to the story!

Thank you to random house and NetGalley for providing an e-copy for review

Dead and Gondola is a charming little cozy mystery set in the hamlet of Last Word. The Christie sisters (along with resident cat Agatha) have taken over running the family bookstore…The Book Chalet. Everything is picture perfect until a strange man arrives. The sisters find themselves supplying books for the snow-stranded town and investigating a murder and other mysteries. Dun dun duuuuunnnn!!!

I really enjoyed this quaint novel. It’s packed full of colorful characters and my personal fav is Glynis the town busy body. Are there tons of references to Agatha Christie? Yes. Did I love that? Yes. Claire uses the “locked room” mystery trope via a snowstorm that traps all our suspects in the town and provides an ending straight out of a Christie novel. The book is a nice blend of Christie and Murder She Wrote. Very charming and a perfect read for your own snow day.

El Christie has come home to work in her family’s Book Store in the Colorado mountains. During a book club meeting, a man comes into the store and is looking for Cece. Who that is, they do not know, but he surely was a strange man. When the stranger dies in front of the El and Meg, and their book store assistant disappears, the sisters don’t believe that the two things are quite so separate. Did the woman meet with danger? Did she disappear because she needed a break? Surely she did not kill the man, as she is a kind woman.

With the new police chief unfamiliar with the locals and sniffing around some of those nearest and dearest to the sisters, they put their sleuthing hats on and hope they don’t meet the killer, like so many characters do in the mysteries they sell.

This is a fabulous start to a new cozy series. I LOVE the setting and could almost smell the books and fresh snow. Agatha is the perfect pet for this series and Gram is the cutest! I also like the play on this Christie sisters name and the great Agatha Christie! I’m l

Dead and Gondola is an entertaining murder mystery patterned after t he Agatha Christie murder mysteries. It is set in a bookshop and definitely promotes reading and books and keeps you guessing until the amateur bookshop owner-sisters sleuths solve the crime. Enjoyable read.

I loved the premise, I loved the location and I loved the expert mystery in Ann Claire's 'Dead and Gondola.' I am so grateful this is a first in A Christie Bookstore Mystery series so that I can expect more. The story percolated to near perfection with charming, engaging characters and a mystery that greatly surprised me in the end. More like, shocked me. I can't wait for more and want questions answered about many of the characters. I hope
the next in the series comes soon!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

Here’s a cozy little mystery set in the snow filled mountains of Colorado, in a bookstore run by the Christie sisters, Ellie and Meg. What could be more perfect than a murder mystery featuring unconfirmed relations of Agatha Christie? Although sharing the last name, there was no confirmed relation but they still loved to identify with the connection. While during their weekly mystery book club meeting at the bookstore, a strange man enters which makes them uneasy. The man was shooed away but left a mysterious bag with a book written by Agatha Christie. In an attempt to return his book. Ellie and Meg follow after him as he travels back down the mountain on the gondola. Except that when they get to the bottom, the mysterious man has died. Or was it murder? Elle and Meg set out to find the murderer and no one is above suspicion. A quick read, there are lots of twists and turns to keep the reader engaged. Everyone in town wants to help solve the murder. There are enough characters that will have you thinking that more than one person is hiding something. Set in the mountains, an added snowstorm and closed road of the only way in adds to the suspense. When the ending comes, you will be quite surprised. Grab this book and a cup of cocoa, and enjoy this cozy mystery today.

Many thanks to #netgalley #deadandgondola #randomhousepublishinggroup for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I really enjoyed reading this cozy mystery. A fun story with some twists and turns that made the book fun. Dead and Gondola by Ann Claire is a must read!

Dead and Gondola is the first in the Christie Bookshop series. El Christy has recently returned to her family home in Last Word, Colorado, where she and her sister, Meg, run the family’s history bookshop, the Book Chalet. They are the fifth generation in the book business. They’re joined by Agatha C. (as in Cat) Christy, a cranky long-haired Siamese whose Instagram profile is larger than that of the two women. Last Word is a skiers’ paradise, being bought up by wealthy people and pricing out the old-time residents, creating a melange of movie stars, real estate entrepreneurs, skiing enthusiasts, and grumpy old-timers and their ensuing conflicts.

A mysterious stranger enters the shop as a book club holds a seance re-enacting an Agatha Christy book, The Sittaford Mystery. He leaves suddenly and is later found murdered on a gondola. While in the shop, he leaves behind a rare copy of a Mary Westmacott, an Agatha Christie written under a pseudonym.

This is a cute book. El is an appealing protagonist, and her family and friends feel lifelike and fun. Agatha Christie books are a common denominator, and the conclusion even wraps up like most Christie books do with the suspects gathered together as El tries to get them to talk. The ending has a twist that brings everything to an exciting climax. Dead and Gondola is the perfect book for a gloomy day or when you need a light fluffy read.

Everything I want in a cozy mystery, including a cat!
How could anyone resist a book with a title like Dead and Gondola? I didn’t, with the hope that the cleverness that produced the title would hold up in the writing .
Even the opening made me smile: “I swung open the heavy oak door and blinked at the figure taking shape in the blizzard. ‘What a perfect day for murder!’” And a perfect setting for a cozy mystery: a bookstore in the small Colorado resort town of Last Word, peopled by the usual cast of quirky locals, super-wealthy vacation-property owners, and outdoor recreation vacationers.
There are some nice appreciative comments on the natural setting throughout, but that mix of people and their development was the most delightful part of the book. Note I call them people, not characters. Far from clichés, narrator Ellie Christie, her sister Meg, their Gram, their employee Ms. Riggs, Ellie’s high-school classmate and potential love interest Sydney and others, like superstar and booklover Morgan Marin, think and act as I expect people to act, good and bad. Ellie combines the two, for example, when she says, “I’d peeked out the window this morning with the giddy glee of a kid on a snowy day. Except I’d seen the winter wonderland as a perfect day for reading”. She is a true booklover.
The ”people” are not all human, and Agatha C (for Cat) Christie is a wonderful part of the book. She doesn’t help solve the murder, but she does help Gram by cuddling with her in joint naps and “help” Ellie set up book displays by knocking the books over. Yep, Agatha is a true cat.
There are frequent references to classic mystery in the book, especially Agatha Christie, but they are not cryptic to those who have forgotten their Christie or have not read the works in question (They are motivators to go read or reread, though.).
There are lots of suspects with credible motives and possible opportunities. I had quibbles or questions about a few small details of the plot, but the solution made sense and I DID NOT SEE IT COMING AT ALL. It also eliminated what I was seeing as a possible drag on future books in the series.
Needless to say, I will be eagerly anticipating that next book.

This cute cozy set in a bookshop in a small town makes me long for winter. I haven't read the first book in this series, but the author did a great job of making it not necessary to have done so--people, places, and things are all given enough backstory that I didn't feel like I was missing a lot. The characters are a little thin in terms of personality (does Meg *have* a personality?) and some of the plotting was a bit disjointed, but in the end you get a sense of the town and its inhabitants and a decent mystery, even if you've already correctly guessed the killer much, much earlier. Good for a cold day with cocoa, a cat, or both.

This was a fun, well plotted read of a new to-me author. Characters and setting were both well done and enjoyable. Looking forward to reading more in this series.

Meg and Ellie Christie run their family's bookstore in a small hamlet in Colorado. They have a steady stream of local customers and tourists, and they're happy with what they do. While having a book club discussion one morning, a man wanders in and looks around, insisting that he's there to meet someone named "Cece". After they finally get him to leave, they don't expect to see the man later on, entering a gondola. Since he left something at the bookstore, they want to return it to him. But when they get to the bottom, it's discovered he has been murdered, and now they wonder who he is -- there was no identification on him at all.

They also can't locate one of their employees, Ms. Ridge. Worried about her, they discover no one saw her use the gondola down to town, and they hope she's alright. But after several days, they file a missing persons report, and with the help of a local reporter named Piper, they get the word out. Ellie knows something just doesn't feel right, with the death and Ms. Ridge's disappearance, but she can't really put her finger on it. Then a friend she knew from school, Syd Zeller, asks for her help when the police suspect his father of the murder. Now Ellie's up to her ears in mysteries, and not the kind in books...

This is the first book in a new series, and I must say that I enjoyed it immensely. Ms. Claire has a way with words, and her descriptions of the area surrounding the bookstore is real enough that I could picture it in my mind easily. The mountains, the snow, the cold; all is visible in her words.

She writes a good mystery with a good plot, and the characters are real enough, but hopefully will be fleshed out more in the next book. The only character I didn't care for was Piper -- she was a little too pushy and abrasive; I would have liked her more if she had backed off somewhat. But perhaps in the next book she'll relax a little.

The mystery was done so well that I had not even suspected the murderer; and that is rare for me. The ending was indeed fun and ingenious; and I hope this talented author brings us another book to delve into quickly. Highly recommended.

This was a very enjoyable cozy mystery. The characters were all colorful. Lots of twists and turns to keep me guessing at who the murderer was. I really like the Christie sisters. They are not related to Agatha Christie but they own a bookshop and are huge fans of the writer. They named their cat Agatha. This is a great book for any mystery fan and reader alike. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced free copy of this book from Net Galley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for this ARC. The Christie sisters have taken over the Book Chalet from their parents. They are in the middle of the murder book club when a strange man walks in, interrupts and asks for Cece. When he realizes she isn't there, he rushes out and leaves behind his satchel and a book. Later, when the sisters realize he left his belongings behind, they rush out to find him only to see him step into the gondola taking him into town. They board the one behind him but when they reach the base station, he is found dead with a stab wound to the back. What happened? This is a cute, cozy mystery that I hope will be a series. #DeadandGondola #AnnClaire #RandomHouse #Nov2022

This was such a good and enjoyable cozy mystery!!!!
I loved the character's especially Rosie and Gram they were always funny and cute together! Plus I loved all the eclectic townspeople too!!! The mystery/murder they had to solve left me stumped I thought I had it all figured out only to be very surprised by what actually happened!!! I can't wait for more books in this series cuz I will definitely be reading and recommending them!

Much thanks to #netgalley and #randomhousepublishinggroup for allowing me to read and review this ARC

I will also be posting this review in the Facebook group I created near its publication date
@DOMESTIC THRILLER READERS BOOK CLUB

A cozy mystery, and being the first of a possible series, the world building was done well. You can imagine the town in a wintery setting in Colorado. There are a fair number of characters, but not too many to keep track of, especially as suspects. I'm sure the next book will contain the same group of neighbors, and hopefully a little more background on the sisters. Enjoyable read and hopefully a new cozy murder mystery series featuring the bookstore. Thanks to NetGalley and pub.ishers for an early read.

I expected a cozy mystery with shallow characters and a predictable ending. What I got was a well-thought out mystery with a bit of a twist! The characters are a tad cheesy (big sis, little sis), but deeper than you'd think. I do want to know more about them.
The Christie family has owned a book store in the mountains of Colorado for generations. El has just moved back and is manning the store with her Gram and sister Meg. In homage to their namesake, Agatha Christie, the sisters are curious and thoughtful when strange things start happening on their mountain.
I'd absolutely seek out the next book in the series. I was asked to read a prepub copy for my honest opinion, which I've stated above. Give this one a chance. You'll be surprised!!

This was my first arc book and it was very enjoyable. The ending wasn’t as predictable as i thought it would be. I enjoyed feeling like a detective as i read through the book learning all the plot twists. At some parts i felt that there should’ve been dialogue and also it was lowkey cringe at how the main character played the basic book nerd. Also i couldn’t believe that everyone in the town loved reading books. However i would Definitely would recommend to friends. I started this book on July 30,2022 and finished on august 1, 2022 and I received this book on NetGalley.