Hannah White Mysteries: Book 1
Publication Date: March 31, 2025
There wasn’t an honest bone in Buzz Bixby’s body. The Encino High School’s head football coach was an equal-opportunity scoundrel. Bixby cheated and lied his way to the top and screwed anyone and everyone in his wake. So, the question wasn’t who wanted the bastard dead. The question was, who didn’t?
Student reporter Hannah White’s interview with the coach is a nonstarter when she discovers varsity football hero Dean Snyder standing over Bixby’s battered corpse holding a bloody trophy. Despite how guilty Dean looks, Hannah is convinced he’s innocent. When Snyder is arrested for Bixby’s murder, the wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to flesh out the real killer.
But the trail has more twists and turns than a slinky, and nothing turns out how Hannah thinks it will as she tangles with a clever killer hellbent on revenge.
I love it when I can read a series from the first book onward. Such is the case with Susie Black’s first book in the Hannah White Mysteries, The Case of the Croaked Coach.
I really enjoyed this book. The writing was excellent, the dialogue was clever and humorous. Hannah White is the teenager that I wished I was. She is such a smart character, and she is able to hold her own against adults. I couldn’t have done that when I was a teenager.
I like it when I can start a series and understand the innuendos or inside jokes that the author may make that only someone who has read the series from the beginning can understand and appreciate.
I appreciated Hannah’s group of friends too. They helped move the plot along, and calling themselves Yenta’s was pretty clever since Hannah was a journalist for the school paper. Being nosey was a part of her job. The story moved fast, and there were no weird, awkward moments that felt stiff or out of place as if the author forgot where they were going with an idea.
I genuinely enjoy cozy mysteries involving family and friendship, and I like a clever main character who knows how to do the job.
I highly recommend The Case of the Croaked Coach. It is cute, funny, easy to read, and a truly entertaining read.
Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple, but now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk. Now she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in humorous mysteries.
She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.
