Zen and the Art of Murder (Zen Moses Mysteries)
by Elizabeth M. Cosin
Written and originally released in 1998,
Minotaur rereleased the book, in Kindle format, on March 14, 2025
Hard-Boiled Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – California
To live and die in L.A.
Zen Moses is either having a bad day or bad karma. Her cat is dead. The IRS wants to talk to her. And she just found her long-lost cousin’s body bound to a beer keg at her favorite neighborhood bar. It’s enough to drive even a tough private investigator to drink, smoke a good cigar, and find a firm male shoulder to cry on.
But cynical, wise-cracking Zen is both a loner and survivor. At thirty-three she’s already beat a bout with cancer– and soon she’s being offered big bucks to find a talk-show celebrity’s missing father. It seems like an easy job until Zen finds out she’s just one step ahead of a hit man. Now Zen’s professional and private lives are converging into a world of murder and gunplay…and the sound of one hand clapping may end up being bang bang.
Dollycas’s Thoughts
Private Investigator Zenaria (Zen) Moses has been through a lot in her 33 years, including surviving lung cancer, several bad decisions, and many terrible relationships. The former sportswriter, now PI, is eager to return to work, but her day got off to a very rocky start. Her cat died, and in a crazy event, she dropped his urn while walking in a rainstorm and watched his ashes float away in the rainwater. The IRS has her set for an audit. And a trip to Father’s Office, her favorite neighborhood pub, serves up a dead body on the floor of the walk-in cooler with its arms and legs wrapped around a keg. Zen was shaken to her core when she realized the body was her cousin, who she thought had died 12 years ago.
Of course, she wants to investigate her cousin’s past 12 years and his death, but she has been offered well above her usual rates to locate the father of a celebrity talk show host. Hoping that a quick resolution to the missing person case will enable her to take on her cousin’s, she gets right to work. She soon learns that both cases are connected and have ties to the mob. With danger abounding every turn, Zen may have bit off more than she can chew. Will she survive to tell the story? Or will her body be found next door in the pet cemetery?
Zen Moses is a complex protagonist. She is a loner, cynical, but smart, tough, and honest. She trusts very few people: her best friend, Nat, who owns Father’s Office, and her sometime partner, soulmate, ex-army cop, Bobo, who trained her under his PI license, and has come to her rescue many times as only he can. She reconnects with her Uncle Sam after a long time, but that relationship is in flux. Her “best buddy” on the police force has moved away. Detective Jonathan Brooks takes his place, and trust and more slowly builds between them. Ms. Cosin does an excellent job of introducing these characters while allowing them to reveal their pasts and to develop throughout the story.
The author puts forth an elaborate mystery with many twists and turns. Zen finds herself in the wrong places at the wrong time a lot, and I was entertained following along with her every step of the way, from one end of California to the other. Written before cell phones were the norm, I had to adjust my thinking a time or two. I was a little disappointed with the ending. It was full of drama, but it didn’t feel right to me.
Zen and the Art of Murder stars a genuine protagonist who intrigued me immediately. She makes some life choices I wouldn’t have after surviving cancer, but it’s not my place to judge. The other core characters held my interest, as well. So, while the ending wasn’t what I wanted, I would be open to visiting these characters again. There is only one more book in this series, though, Zen and the City of Angels, so maybe that is telling.
Note- this book does include explicit language, as is common in this genre.
*This book is from my private collection. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
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About the Author (from LibraryThing)
Elizabeth M. Cosin is a veteran TV writer of such shows as “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” and “24” and has written two pilot scripts sold to CBS/Paramount. She is also an award-winning published mystery novelist, having authored two detective novels featuring L.A. private detective Zen Moses.
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*This book is from my private collection. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
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