I love a good cozy mystery! One that incorporates all of my favorite topics (i.e. genealogy, bookstores, libraries, cooking, painting, inn keeping, animals, etc.), throwing in some action-suspense, a who-done-it, interesting characters, and a plot that keeps me guessing, then you’ve got me hooked. I will say, I am one of those people who like to read a series from the beginning, but I often find you don’t have to… either way I highly recommend reading Something Fishy This Way Comes by Gabby Allan.

*I received a complimentary copy of this novel from NetGalley at my request and this review is my own unbiased opinion.*

A clever and fun cozy mystery series that invented the “rom-cozy” (romantic comedy with cozy mystery tropes) sub genre.

This book helped me get out of a book slump. I was able to connect with the characters and loved getting to know the cast of characters on the island. I really wanted to know what caused the feud. I can't wait to read more of this series.

This my first time reading this series by the author. I enjoy reading cozy mysteries, and recently now romantic comedies. When I heard that this series, has both elements of a cozy mystery and romantic comedy I just had to give it a try!

Gabby Allan does a great job of creating wonderful characters and story. Not to mention blending the two elements together. People interested in cozy mysteries and romantic comedies, should try out this series.

My thanks to Kensington Publishing for a digital copy of this book for my review. I'm looking forward to more of this series!

I read and reviewed the first book in this series before. I thought this was part of another series when I first requested it, but the minute I encountered our leading lady, I realised my mistake. That said, I actually preferred this installment over the first. Hopefully, the trend will keep up!
Whitney Dagner has gained a reputation after the previous adventure as someone who can get to the bottom of things. She runs a gift shop on an island, having come back from the mainland for a quieter life. As such books go, she is not going to get any downtime.
As she is trying to make sense of what her latest customer wants, he gets a call to get to the golf course. Whitney also heads off in that direction in order to place treasure. This last part is what she does as part of her job. She sells custom treasure maps for people, and they are used as gifts.
On the golf course, a young man lies dead. He falls on one side of a family feud that has stretched through generations. This complicates issues because one side wants this labelled a suicide and closed up, while the other obviously wants to get to the truth.
Whitney is approached by multiple people to figure things out. I found the investigation and the interactions quite thorough, but it felt a little rushed. Although there was a timer on the closure of the case, I think this would have benefitted with more time spent with Whitney as she figured things out.
The reveal is believable and toes the boundary between being light and serious, and should satisfy most readers of this genre. The overall writing was smooth and makes for an easy read. I would recommend this series to those who like these kinds of mysteries.
As backstories for the central characters go, the Dagner family are not ordinary. We are provided more background into the missing parents but the family still on the island are highly involved in each other's daily lives. I am still a little uncertain of the role of the cat in this. Whiskers has a prominent position on the cover and the title, but to my recollection, I do not think there was any involvement towards the solution from the cat.
I was not as sure after the first if I would continue with the series, but my reaction to this story makes me look forward to the next.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers. My review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

Something Fishy This Way Comes is Gabby Allan's second book in the Whit and Whiskers Mystery series. The protagonist in this series, Whitney Dagner, has returned home to Catalina Island from the mainland, opened a gift shop, and is helping out with her family's boat tours. As part of the gift shop, she sells treasure chests which she then buries for her customers and provides them with a map so the recipient can go on a treasure hunt. While getting ready to bury one of the chests, Whitney comes across a couple of her customers arguing on the golf course while standing over the body of another. Due to a long-standing family feud, a cover-up is attempted by trying to force a ruling of suicide which leads Whitney to investigate not only the current crime but also the origins of the feud.

Within the plot and character development, the author has done a good job of weaving the various aspects and relationships into the fabric of this story. Using the underlying family feud, the author is able to include multiple twists and red herrings that lead to a few surprising revelations as to the ultimate culprit and motive for the murder. The feud also enables the reader to learn more about the history of the characters that make up the cast of this series that could ultimately lead to future installments of this series. I look forward to seeing what the future holds for Whitney and the rest of the characters in this series.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Kensington Publishing and am leaving this review voluntarily.

SOMETHING FISHY THIS WAY COMES by Gabby Allan
The Second Whit and Whiskers Mystery

When Whitney Dagner heads over to the golf course to bury one of her shop's special treasures she's not entirely surprised to find two twitchers, AKA birdwatchers, arguing. What is surprising is that they're doing it over a dead body. The body is that of Leo Franklin, a young man who finally got his life turned around and whose family is on one side of a longstanding feud. Before the police arrive a whole contingency of Aherns arrive, the opposing family in the feud, declaring his death a suicide. Whit is doubtful Leo would take his own life and when his family asks her to look into matters, she can't resist, especially since the Chief of police is an Ahern and eager to rule the death a suicide. Whit and her friends will scramble to get to the truth before the coroner calls case closed, or someone closes the case on them!

I find feuds fascinating, especially when current family members have no clue what the feud is actually about. That's the case in SOMETHING FISHY THIS WAY COMES, and Whit believes discovering the root of the feud will lead to the murderer of today. I love the way Whit works with her family and friends to solve a puzzle, as well as live their best lives on Catalina Island. Always there for each other, caring, but poking fun as well, they bring love and community to the pages.

The mystery was complex. How did Leo actually die? Was his death due to the feud? Or was it something more recent? Who wanted him dead and who could have killed him? These questions have Whit and readers alike puzzled. But the murder isn't the only problem Whit has to solve, she also has Goldie's new ideas for the shop. I enjoy the balance between mystery, island drama, and daily living.

SOMETHING FISHY THIS WAY COMES is a fast paced quick read. Charming characters, lots of laughs, and a complex puzzle make this second Whit and Whiskers Mystery a fun and refreshing delight.

I enjoyed the first book in this series and was pleased to find I enjoyed the second book as well. I really like the protagonist and her reluctance to solve the mystery was a fun twist for the genre. I liked the writing, but I did think the story moved a little slowly at times and could have had a bit more action and the ending was a little bit rushed (although I loved how she “solved it”). Whit is focusing on her business, which isn’t doing as great as she hoped, when she happens to stumble on another body. She;’s not interested in solving this mystery until enough people prod her since the victim is involved with a long standing family feud and it looks like the police chief, part of the rival family, will sweep it under the rug as a suicide (despite golf cart tire tracks on the body). I like all of the cast of characters and I especially like that the love interest wasn’t drawn out but also didn’t take over the story. Well written cozy and hope to read more in this series!

I was really looking forward to this, as I loved the first one. This one was pretty good but there were too many unnecessary characters to keep track of and I found that took away from the story. I enjoy the setting and the core cast of characters and will continue to read this series. This one just didn't work for me.

While I enjoyed the first book in the series I did find a few issues with it. Unfortunately those same issues are present in this one and worse. The main character just seems really immature to me. She complains about things but does nothing to fix it. For some reason she never works and pawns her job off on others. This seem like an odd way of presenting the main character. I did like the other characters and there were a few parts I enjoyed but it really didn't work for me.

Dollycas’s Thoughts

Whitney Dagner owns the Dame of the Sea gift shop on Santa Catalina Island. Her grandmother Goldy helps out at the shop quite often and even orders merchandise she thinks will sell well. Her latest craze is for painted rocks, some with uplifting messages. They are just flying off the shelves.

Whitney leaves Goldie in charge of the shop while she goes out to bury one of the treasure chests her shop is known for. But when she arrives at her destination she finds two men arguing and a dead body on the ground in front of them. They are trying to assert that the young man took his own life. Whitney is even more confused when she realizes that instead of calling the police they called their family, the Ahern family, who have all started to arrive on the scene.

Whitney knows the deceased, Leo Franklin was a fun guy, newly engaged, and had his whole life ahead of him. There has been a long-time feud between Leo’s family and the Ahern clan, but after all these years would they actually kill someone over the feud? A feud that no one really knows how it started.

With the help of her friend Maribel and her boyfriend Felix, she needs to try to find something that will show he didn’t die by suicide, even if it means uncovering everything about the feuding families.

This story takes place on the idyllic Santa Catalina Island. The author’s descriptions of it really make me want to visit. I would love to see all the sights and enjoy a tour in a glass-bottomed boat.

There is a nice set of core characters, Whitney, Maribel, Goldie, Pops, Nick, Felix, and of course Whiskers. These characters were fleshed out a little more in this second book but there is still much more development needed to really get readers invested in these characters. The relationships do feel genuine. The new characters introduced needed more development as well. Again Goldie was my favorite. I love her confidence and that she goes after whatever she wants. She also mans Dame of the Sea while Whit is chasing down clues.

For me, the story opened with a very slow pace and traveled hither and yon without really getting anywhere. I guess I needed more action mixed in with the humorous passages and Whitney starting her investigation. Whitney always had a lot of irons in the fire but she couldn’t get the clues to fall into place. Then in the last chapters, she had her A-Ha moment the pace picked up with the mystery solved very quickly. The reveal happened in a unique way that was really great.

Something Fishy This Way Comes was a good sequel to Much Ado about Nauticaling. I really enjoy the theme of this series and I am sure the characters will continue to develop as the series continues and Whitney refines her amateur sleuthing techniques. I am curious to see what Ms. Allan has in store next for these characters.

The first book in this series was exceptional: fast paced, compelling, highly entertaining. This is one is good but not as good as the first one. A bit slow and confusing at times.
I enjoyed it but hope the pace of the next one will be more even and the plot tighter.
Even if there's some issues it's entertaining and I was glad to catch with the characters.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

One of the things I enjoy so much about the Whit & Whiskers Mystery series is how closely the sense of humor mirrors my own. With Whit’s first person narration, we get a front row seat for her dry humor, and I love it. But it’s not just Whit that has a delightful wit (sorry … couldn’t resist … that pun was just begging to be used) – her family does too, and boyfriend Felix fits right in. I find myself chuckling a lot at their conversations and at Whit’s reactions & asides.

Move over, Hatfields & McCoys. The Franklins & Aherns have the floor now. The mystery in Something Fishy This Way Comes is a complex pretzel of a murder case made all the twistier by a feud between two prominent families on Catalina Island and a Romeo-Julietish romance. When a young man from the Franklin clan dies before he can run off & marry a young woman from the Ahern clan, Whit must deal with one side trying to cover up a murder and the other side demanding she investigate. I enjoyed following along as Whit, her police diver boyfriend Felix, and her roommate Maribel (who is the perfect sidekick) wrangle a group of birdwatchers, dodge not-so-cleverly-veiled threats, and stumble onto clues.

My favorite part of this mystery, though, was peeking over Whit’s shoulder as she dug into the archives to see if she could find out once and for all what this doggoned feud was all about. The reason it was my favorite is because, in the process, she unearthed some other interesting tidbits of history that open up some possibilities for future cases (are there secrets behind the other businesses that were housed where Whit’s gift shop is now??) and maybe a job that would give her the personal fulfillment she still hasn’t quite found. I’d love to see Whit a bit more settled and at peace – given the beautiful setting she lives in and the endearing group of family and friends around her, she deserves to be content.

Bottom Line: Something Fishy This Way Comes by Gabby Allan delivered all the things I enjoyed about book one, with some added twists that give this book its own flavor. Dry humor, warm relationships, colorful characters, and a quaint paradise setting draw readers into the story and the well-crafted mystery keeps them turning pages until the end. I’m looking forward to visiting Catalina, Whit, and her enigmatic feline sidekick Whiskers again!

(I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.)One of the things I enjoy so much about the Whit & Whiskers Mystery series is how closely the sense of humor mirrors my own. With Whit’s first person narration, we get a front row seat for her dry humor, and I love it. But it’s not just Whit that has a delightful wit (sorry … couldn’t resist … that pun was just begging to be used) – her family does too, and boyfriend Felix fits right in. I find myself chuckling a lot at their conversations and at Whit’s reactions & asides.

Move over, Hatfields & McCoys. The Franklins & Aherns have the floor now. The mystery in Something Fishy This Way Comes is a complex pretzel of a murder case made all the twistier by a feud between two prominent families on Catalina Island and a Romeo-Julietish romance. When a young man from the Franklin clan dies before he can run off & marry a young woman from the Ahern clan, Whit must deal with one side trying to cover up a murder and the other side demanding she investigate. I enjoyed following along as Whit, her police diver boyfriend Felix, and her roommate Maribel (who is the perfect sidekick) wrangle a group of birdwatchers, dodge not-so-cleverly-veiled threats, and stumble onto clues.

My favorite part of this mystery, though, was peeking over Whit’s shoulder as she dug into the archives to see if she could find out once and for all what this doggoned feud was all about. The reason it was my favorite is because, in the process, she unearthed some other interesting tidbits of history that open up some possibilities for future cases (are there secrets behind the other businesses that were housed where Whit’s gift shop is now??) and maybe a job that would give her the personal fulfillment she still hasn’t quite found. I’d love to see Whit a bit more settled and at peace – given the beautiful setting she lives in and the endearing group of family and friends around her, she deserves to be content.

Bottom Line: Something Fishy This Way Comes by Gabby Allan delivered all the things I enjoyed about book one, with some added twists that give this book its own flavor. Dry humor, warm relationships, colorful characters, and a quaint paradise setting draw readers into the story and the well-crafted mystery keeps them turning pages until the end. I’m looking forward to visiting Catalina, Whit, and her enigmatic feline sidekick Whiskers again!

(I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.)

Whitney “Whit” Dagner returned to her hometown of Santa Catalina Island and joined the family tour and gift shop business. She’s making a real success of the shop. The one major problem that Whit finds herself having is stumbling upon dead bodies. It happened a few months ago and history is already repeating itself.

One of her client’s, Leo Franklin, is found dead on the golf course and the police immediately decide it’s suicide. Whit isn’t buying it, but she doesn’t really want to get involved. After all, she’s not really an investigator. However, her pushy grandparents, as well as the rest of the town, look to Whit to solve this mystery.

Against her better judgement, Whit investigates with the help of her friends and family. She discovers there’s more here than meets the eye. From family feuds to hidden romances, Whit has her work cut out for her to find a killer. When she starts receiving threats, she fears she might be getting close to the truth.

I loved my second visit to Santa Catalina Island. It was even more fun than my first visit. In this second book in the series, the cast of characters are more defined and entertaining. Whit’s relationships with her friends and family are realistic.

The storyline moved at a fast-pace. The climax was a surprise. I didn’t figure out “whodunit” until Whit did. I stuck by her side the whole time to figure this out. LOL

The mystery is contained in this book, but it’s so much more fun to read book #1 and get to know the characters better. A fun, suspenseful page turner. Yes, there is a cat involved too! I hope a third book will be coming out soon!





FTC Disclosure: I voluntarily reviewed a free Advance Reader Copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Something Fishy This Way Comes is the second book in the Whit and Whiskers Mystery series. While I didn’t like it as much as the first, Much Ado About Nauticaling, it still has characters that I became invested in in the first book, and I enjoyed jumping back into their lives on Santa Catalina Island.

Whitney Dagner and her brother run the glass bottomed boat tour company that their grandparents previously ran. Whit also runs a small shop, and it’s her true passion and reason for moving back to Catalina. The way the shop is described makes me want to visit and shop. Whit tries to showcase mainly local artisans and handcrafted items though she also carries some of the items tourists look for while on vacation. I recently visited a shop in St. Augustine that does the same thing, and it was delightful. I bought a little nativity ornament made by a local woman. She finds tiny shells to resemble Mary and Joseph. To represent Jesus in the mangers, she uses an even tinier shell with a tiny pearl bead in it. I like to think that that’s the type of item Whit would carry in her shop. Thankfully, Whit’s grandma, or Goldy as she insists upon being called, is around to help run the store while Whit is running around trying to solve mysteries.

Of course in Something Fishy This Way Comes, Whit finds a body while hiding a treasure chest. People buy maps in Whit’s shop that her grandpa makes, and they lead to the treasure. It’s a fun element that the author used in the first book too. The mystery takes off from there with two longtime feuding families feuding again about whether the victim was killed or committed suicide.

I gave this book 3 stars, but I’m still hoping that the series can be great. The characters are enjoyable, so I am looking forward to seeing character growth in the next book. The island setting is beautiful, and I look forward to reading about Whit’s small island town – the shops, eateries, etc. – in vivid detail. Whiskers doesn’t play as much of a role in this second book, but I’m confident that he will play a bigger role in helping sniff out some clues with Whit. Though it can be read as a stand alone, I recommend reading Much Ado About Nauticaling before Something Fishy This Way Comes. I feel as if I got to know the characters better in that book. If you’re looking for a new cozy mystery series with a beautiful setting, give Whit and Whiskers a try.

This is the second book in the Santa Catalina Island-set mystery series called, A Whit and Whiskers.
The generations-long feud between Leo’s kin and the local Ahern clan comes to a head. No one recalls what the feud is about, or at least they don't want to talk about it .
Whitney Dagner, her determined cat Whiskers,and her police diver boyfriend are left to sort through the clues and missteps of the feud sorting out what's truth and what's lies from way back.
I have enjoyed this cozy mystery series and will look for the next in the series coming up.


Pub Date 26 Jul 2022
I was given a complimentary copy of this book.
All opinions expressed are my own.

I enjoyed this book for the most part, but the whole feud thing was just ridiculous. Who stands around a dead body and talks instead of calling the police? That part was just crazy. Other than a few other issues, this was an enjoyable read.

Princess Fuzzypants here: The Hatfields and the McCoys had nothing on the Franklins and the Aherns on Catalina. The feud has been raging for a century and no one can recall what caused it in the first place. The Aherns have an advantage since many of them hold office including the Chief of Police. So it is no wonder when Leo is murdered, the Chief is happy to call it a suicide and be done with it. But Whit is asked to intervene so that this travesty of justice does not occur. She is on a tight schedule since the Coroner is expected within days and once he calls it, nothing can be done.

Not everyone is happy that she is getting involved. In fact, she is threatened more than once but she persists. She does figure out the genesis of the feud and at the same time as she brings the guilty parties to task, she also begins the healing process. It is a good story so I am not sure why it took me a while to get hooked but once I did, I was glad I stuck with it. It ended up being a solid summer read. Four purrs and two paws up.

Whitney Danger’s daily routine has become a wonderfully chaotic adventure since moving back home in mainland California she and her kitty Whiskers often find themselves at the center of the action on Catalina staging treasure hunts to gossipy birdwatchers. Before Whit can get comfortable where she grew up, a gift shop order leads to a stunning discovery someone’s dead body. Leo Franklin was young newly engaged when he took his own life. Only it doesn’t look like that’s what really happened after suspicious activity by his family’s old rivals at the scene. As a bitter generations-long feud between Leo’s kin and the local Ahern clan comes to a head. Whit and the police must lead a dangerous investigation into years of scandal and bad blood to figure out who’s innocent and who maybe covering a killer’s tracks. A very enjoyable story along the California coast great characters. I would highly recommend this book.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC for an exchange for an honest review.

This is a great book, very much enjoyed it.