Want a little Fourth of July murder mystery to go with that hot dog and watermelon? You can't go wrong with the likes of Bill Crider, whose protagonist Sheriff Dan Rhodes has to face personal fireworks around the Fourth Holiday when accused of corruption in the novel Red, White, and Blue Murder. But when the charred body of the county commissioner is found among the ashes of his torched fishing cabin, Rhodes suspects July's fireworks are only getting started.
If you overdose on too much sugary ice cream and pie, you might clear the palate with the noir crime fiction novel King Suckerman by George Pelecanos, which delves into the drug scene in D.C. during the Bicentennial celebration. (Booklist said "this wildly violent crime novel effectively evokes the comic-book heroics of the Superfly era while at the same time sucker punching us with the humanity at its core.")
If cozies are more your thing, Carolyn Hart's Yankee Doodle Dead may be the ticket, as mystery-bookstore owner Annie Darling tries to solve the murder of a retired Brigadier General at the annual Fourth of July festival in the South Carolina resort town Broward's Rock.
Former army nurse Sharon Wildwind's debut mystery novel Some Welcome Home features former Vietnam nurse Captain Elizabeth "Pepper" Pepperhawk who return from her tour in Vietnam to serve as head nurse at an army hospital in Fort Bragg around the Fourth. Before she can report for duty, though, the dead body of a soldier appears in her hotel bed.
And for an oldie but goodie, check out the "Fourth of July Picnic," one of four novellas by Rex Stout featuring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, bundled into the volume And Four to Go, wherein a murder occurs during a restaurant workers union picnic where Wolfe has agreed to speak.
But wait...there's more! You can find additional titles for the Fourth and summer in general via the following lists from the Wakefield Public Library, Michigan City Public Library, MyShelf and also here and here.
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