I’m very fond of Colin Conway’s 509 police procedural series, so I thought I’d try out one of his Cozy Up series. Cozy Up to Blood is third in a fairly bizarre series of “Cozy” mysteries. Imagine a cozy whose hero is Murray Lee, a 6’ 3” former biker, covered in tattoos (he does, however, like to knit). He’s on the run from Satan’s Spawn, a biker gang he betrayed for the sake of a woman. Now he’s in the FBI witness protection program, but he keeps blowing his cover because he gets involved in murder mysteries. So the Spawn get word of where he is, and he has to flee again.

In Cozy Up to Blood, Murray turns up in Belfry, Oregon, an island town, just before the bridge washes out in a flood. The town is flooded with tourists who’ve come for a festival celebrating a series of books and movies about sparkly vampires, clearly based on “Twilight.” There’s really no murder mystery in this story, but Murray does investigate a couple thefts (styling himself a “salvage specialist” in the Travis McGee tradition) while trying to figure out how to escape his biker pursuers, who are waiting to roar into town as soon as the flood subsides.

This book didn’t work at all for me. I got the impression that it was supposed to be a comic story, but the jokes didn’t work. I liked Murray okay, but I have no interest in reading more of his adventures.