'Bout to Dye in Birmingham (A Cousins Cozy Mystery series ) by Beth Hamer Miles

From author Beth Hamer Miles comes a hilarious take on the worst year of your life...It’s March 2020 in Birmingham, Alabama, but Maggie Baxter and her cousin Hugh Lee Pinkston are facing problems even bigger than the quarantine. While navigating her home health job, along with shutdowns, face masks, and toilet paper shortages, Maggie stumbles upon a dead man—snipped in the bud with his own set of monogrammed scissors!It's a salon scheme gone south, and now, Maggie and Hughley are in the midst of a murder investigation. Missing hair salon owners, disappearing patients, destructive raccoons...and why does everyone have purple hair? It’s a mystery fit for Shear-Lock Combs! Can Maggie and Hughley find a killer and survive 2020...or will this be their last bad hair day?

"Realistic dialogue, good character development and interesting setting. Looking forward to reading next one! 5 Stars!"~ So Many Books  (Summary via Goodreads)

I love when authors make the story as real as they can or throw some real life things into make believe stories and Beth Hamer Miles does just that in her new Cousins Cozy Mystery series !!

In 'Bout to Dye in Birmingham main characters Maggie and Hughley, who are cousins, are about to test their relationhip and friendship ... and Maggie is going to test her sanity a bunch of times !!  It is March in the year 2020 and it's the beginning of when the coronavirus begins to affect people in the United States.  The colleges have closed forcing Maggie and Sam's twin daughters, Anna and Jenna, to move back home.  Now they will have all three kids, Anna, Jenna and their son, Evan all under one roof along with Sam who already works from home.  The only one that will be impacted the most will be Maggie who is an at-home speech therapist so she will continue to visit clients in their homes.

But right before everything closes down Maggie is going to get one more luxury treatment and get her hair done.  She is referred to Lula's Locks by one of her client's who is Lula's mother.  Unfortunately Maggie takes the back entrance to the salon which is a long dirt road with a dead naked body in the way.  Little does Maggie know that she will be getting herself and Hughley in the middle of everything !!

Not that finding a dead body isn't bad in itself but Maggie and Sam are going to have to move everyone into Hughley's house when their house ends up having a lot of problems and issues where they are unable to continue staying there.  Luckily Hughley has a huge house and doesn't mind the company.  Plus the house next door to Hughley becomes a project for him when he becomes friends with Dean who is going to be staying there and fixing it to put it on the market.

Readers will fall in love with this book instantly !!  This was one story that I did not want to end.  I was having so much fun staying at Hughley's huge house hanging out with Maggie and crew.  It was also interesting to read a story that included the coronavirus ... as horrible as that was, it is a part of our lives and knowing that it affected everyone helps.  I think readers will really feel for this story and will be on the lookout for future books for sure !!!