Tallie Graver runs a cleaning business with a great crew in Pennsylvania, a town where she's content, and she also has her boyfriend, Max Bennett. She lives in the flat above her family's funeral parlour and works there part-time, though her family would like her to have a lot more input into the funeral business. Tallie is hoping to spend some time alone with Max over the Christmas holidays, but the Gravers have other ideas and instead, she's at an annual Christmas Eve bingo game with her mum and granny and her mean Aunt Ronda. Luck is on Tallie's side and she wins a prize, much to the disgust of Aunt Ronda. Her aunt marches off and leaves her purse behind, but when Tallie follows her to return it, she finds a dead body... it's her aunt. Varnished Without a Trace is the 5th instalment in the Tallie Graver Mystery books and it's my 1st in this series. Although it was book five, I had no difficulties keeping up with characters and events, but I would have preferred to have started from the first novel for continuity reasons. Protagonist Tallie brought her sparkling personality and her astuteness to the proceedings and I also enjoyed the contributions from her wonderfully quirky family who were highly entertaining, as well as the grouchy Police Chief, Burton. Events moved along at a comfortable pace and the mystery itself was fantastic as there was never a dull moment. There were a number of suspects to choose from, and the conclusion was a surprise to me. I had a blast reading this highly amusing and fun, festive cozy and I'm already looking forwarding to catching up with Tallie in book #6, as well as grabbing copies of the first four books. I received a complimentary copy of this novel at my request from Kensington Books via NetGalley. This review is my own unbiased opinion.

family-dynamics, family, friendship, situational-humor, verbal-humor, cozy-mystery, murder, holiday-themed, missing-persons, small-business, small-town, arson Let's see, there's extreme bingo, a murdered curmudgeon whose husband goes missing, a look-alike embalmed body found outside his business, a looney family who wants daughter to stop mucking about as an amateur sleuth and get into the family (funeral home) business against her will. Oh, and an arsonist. Sounds like fun, and it really is. Kept me up reading to find out what's next! Great characters! I requested and received a free ebook copy from Kensington Press via NetGalley.