Guest Post

Guesting on this blog for the first time the awesome Wendy Foster Leigh


The Man on the Washing Machine, Susan Cox

Theophania Bogart has found the perfect city in which to hide from her frenetic past. San Francisco is the ideal city in which to hide from family scandals left behind in England. In San Francisco she begins a new life in the flats around Fabian Gardens. She lives above her shop specializing in soaps, scents, and your basic Bay Area kitsch. She falls into a routine of morning coffee, dog walking, and arguing with her irresponsible business partner. She is settling into the community until the day she sees a local handyman falling from a window across the garden. Something strange is going on in the neighborhood. When her business partner is also killed, Theo seems to be the perfect suspect.


Theo is an example of the plucky protagonist who goes into dark rooms without turning on a light or foolishly meeting a suspect in the silent garden. Perhaps the strangest incident in her escapade is the moment she walks into her laundry room and finds a stranger standing on her washing machine. He disappears quickly, and she goes on the search for both the murderer and the unknown man on the machine.


Sue Cox has written a mystery which demands that it become a series. Theo lives in a square surrounded by flats and businesses filled with future stories. The book is a comfortable read; however, has an edge to it that should appeal to readers who want a strong woman protagonist and a cast of peculiar characters.


The Man on the Washing Machine is the winner of Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel. Sue Cox has created a likeable character in the form of Theo and has introduced a neighborhood association with enough personality to make a reader curious as to what can happen next in Fabian Gardens.