Murder by Laughter: 8 Funny Murder Mysteries

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

At the top of my list is Jesse Sutanto’s Vera Wong series. Vera Wong has a routine; she runs her tea shop, delivers tea, and annoys her son on the phone. But her routine goes out the window when she discovers a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. On top of that, she meets four people who “happened” to show up that morning at her tea shop. Very suspicious.  So she decides that she’s going to get down to business and figure out which of the four suspects killed the man. But of course, she’s going to feed them and figure out what they are doing wrong with their lives first. You’ll fall in love with Vera Wong in this book and the four principal leads. Plus the sequel Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) comes out in April. It’s a worthy successor to the book.

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Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies by Catherine Mack

Eleanor Dash is the author of a popular mystery series featuring Connor Smith and she wants out. It’s not that the money isn’t good; it’s that she wants the real Connor Smith out of her life. They met on her first trip overseas in a whirlwind romance—and crime—but now the act is getting old. Before she can cut Connor out of her books and her life, she’ll have to make it through a 10-day tour of Italy with Connor, her sister, several literary rivals, a group of her most loyal fans…and her stalker. What could go wrong? A whole lot. Eleanor is a great character; she’s witty and pithy. And there are footnotes! Book 2 in the series, No One Was Supposed to Die at This Wedding, is coming out in May.

Vinyl Resting Place by Olivia Blacke

A good pun is always a good sign of a funny mystery. The first book in the Record Shop Mystery series delivers. Juni Jessup has returned to her hometown to open a record shop and coffee shop with her sisters Tansy and Maggie in Cedar River, Texas. It’s bringing a family business back to life…except they find a dead body on their opening night. Armed with punny coffee drinks and band T-shirts, Juni decides she has to investigate, especially after her uncle is accused of the crime.

Mimi Lee Gets a Clue by Jennifer J. Chow

In this first book in the Sassy Cat Mystery trilogy, Mimi Lee has opened her pet grooming shop, Hollywoof (we are all about the puns here), in Los Angeles. She loves working with animals, but no one prepared her for a talking cat who she names Marshmallow (and who is not happy about the name). Worse yet, she didn’t expect to ruffle feathers so quickly, but when she hears about a breeder mistreating his Chihuahuas, she decides to confront him. When the police show up, it’s not to take the breeder to task, because he’s dead and Mimi is now in the doghouse. Can Mimi clear her name, manage her shop, and deal with her demanding cat and mother all at the same time?

It’s Elementary by Elise Bryant

Despite her reservations and lack of free time, Mavis Miller finds herself strong-armed into leading the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee for the Parent Teacher Association at her daughter’s school. She expects it to be messy, but certainly not a missing persons case. At her first meeting, she watches the PTA president, Trisha Holbrook, get into it with the principal and then overhears Trisha trashing the president in the women’s bathroom. Worse, she acts really weird in the parking lot afterward. That would have been odd enough, then the principal goes missing the very next day. Mavis thinks something is up and she decides to find out if murder is part of Trisha’s skill set.

The Stranger Times by C. K. McDonnell

Imagine if the National Inquirer had truthful elements to it… That’s the basic premise of The Stranger Times. Managing editor Vincent Banecroft may be a terrible boss who clearly hates his job and life, but when Hannah wanders in for a new job, things take a turn. Banecroft, Hannah, and the staff of the Stranger Times find out that there are “more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in their philosophy.” With four books so far and a podcast full of short stories, McDonnell’s Stranger Times series is well worth checking out if you want weird and wacky.

The Verifiers by Jane Pek

We know that people frequently lie about themselves on dating apps. So what if there was a place where people could hire investigators to find out about their internet dates? That’s Veracity, an online dating verification agency. Claudia Lin works there, but she’s got secrets of her own. No one knows she works there, and her mom doesn’t know she’s a lesbian. But when Claudia takes a strange case from a client who ends up dead in their apartment, Claudia decides she has to find out why the client came to them in the first place and why she was murdered. She may break some company rules…and maybe some of her own. You don’t have to wait for the sequel; The Rivals came out last year.

Two Parts Sugar, One Part Murder by Valerie Burns

I love fish-out-of-water stories, and the Baker Street Mystery series delivers. Maddy Montgomery never thought she’d find herself on a plane to a small Michigan town for an inheritance from a great aunt she never met. But after she’s left at the altar by her fiance, she decides to try something new. In New Bison, she learns she has inherited her great aunt’s house, her bakery, and her 200-pound English Mastiff. She has to live there and take care of the bakery and dog for a year to get her inheritance. How is she going to run a bakery when she doesn’t even know how to bake? And why did the town’s mayor get stabbed in her bakery? It’s fun and funny to watch Maddy figure out her life and baking. There are three books out now in this series and Book 4, Icing on the Murder, comes out this July.