A wildly ridiculous, laugh out loud mystery packed with murder, poodles, questionable decisions, sex, and one spectacularly chaotic amateur sleuth.

Goodreads | Don’t Cross Mo Ellery

Release date: August 11, 2026

Publisher: William Morrow

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Synopsis:

A laugh-out-loud mystery following the indomitable hot mess Mo Ellery, whose job as a school crossing guard pulls her into an unhinged murder investigation.

Mo Ellery’s 29th birthday is a disaster. After one smallaccident—the exposure of her boyfriend’s genitals (well, maybe not that small) on a work video call—she manages to get fired, dumped, and kicked out of their overpriced Chicago apartment. Luckily, a sign appears to guide Mo to her new “Looking for flexible part-time work? Become a school crossing guard!” It’s everything Mo has been looking health insurance. How hard can it be?

A few weeks later, Mo is adjusting to her new low-paying job, her bisexual reawakening, and her new neighborhood’s wacky characters. There’s Claudia, an old woman who refuses to let Mo help her cross the street, and Marlowe, a tween cell phone prodigy whose antics terrify her. But Mo’s greatest nemesis is Poodle Dude, a guy with an SUV full of poodles who speeds through her intersection each morning. . . until the day he speeds into a sinkhole. Mo tries and fails to shield innocent eyes from his bloody corpse, but succeeds in accidentally becoming the guardian to his three poodles.

And that’s not the worst of some of the locals are convinced that Poodle Dude was murdered. Their allegations are obviously ridiculous, but Mo, desperate for distractions—and for several hot neighbor-suspects—reluctantly agrees to help. But Mo the detective is just as chaotic as Mo the underemployed adult, and the three entitled poodles are not helping. When a second local dies under mysterious circumstances, it’s going to take all of Mo’s broadly applicable and transferrable skills to find the killer.

Murderers beware. . . DON’T CROSS MO ELLERY!

Review:

This book is silly, ridiculous, over the top, messy, wacky, and completely committed to the bit—and honestly, I had a blast. You absolutely cannot take Don’t Cross Mo Ellery too seriously. This is not the kind of mystery where you’re sitting there carefully piecing together clues and admiring the intricacy of the investigation. This is the kind where you sit back and think, What the actual hell is happening? while turning the pages because you need to see what kind of nonsense Mo gets herself into next. 😂

Mo is a hot mess, but she’s also surprisingly relatable underneath all the questionable decisions and chaotic behavior. She’s figuring out her life, her relationships, her sexuality, her career, and basically who the hell she is, and she’s doing approximately none of it gracefully. Add a collection of wildly entertaining characters, three entitled poodles, hot neighbors, murder, and an absolutely unhinged amount of sex and sexual references, and you’ve got a mystery that feels much more modern and millennial than traditional cozy.

And speaking of cozy: I wouldn’t quite call this a true cozy mystery. There are definitely cozy adjacent elements, but the humor is much more outrageous, and the descriptions surrounding the murders go a little further than what I typically expect from a cozy. Think modern mystery with cozy ish vibes and absolutely zero interest in behaving itself. If you enjoyed Finlay Donovan, I can absolutely see this being your kind of ridiculous. It’s far fetched, the characters are bonkers, the situations are even bonkers er, and none of it is pretending to be anything other than pure entertainment.

Perfect for Readers Who Love

• Messy, chaotic protagonists who somehow stumble into solving murders
• Modern mysteries with outrageous humor
• Wacky supporting characters and absurd situations
• Finlay Donovan style far fetched mystery mayhem
• Poodles being involved in things they absolutely should not be involved in
• A mystery that prioritizes fun over realism

Overall rating: 4/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Novelgossip!