On the HahaFiction shelf
A Zoom with a View
Blue Oak Mysteries · Book 1 · 2026
Leo Holloway returns to Blue Oak, Texas, with an academic career that has gone nowhere and a photography job at her godmother’s real-estate firm. Finding a rival agent dead on a property turns that fresh start into a murder case. Her godmother is arrested, and Leo helps a local detective investigate.
From the publisher’s blurb
“A bold and hilarious introduction to a new sleuth”Read the full description at Dutton / Penguin Random House description
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What makes it funny?
Leo and her friend Emily already have an extensive private interest in the victim: they secretly moderate a Reddit group mocking his influencer persona. Chaz’s advice and self-important posts have supplied years of entertainment. Now their favorite target is dead, and the women behind the anonymous commentary have a crime to untangle.
The comedy at work
Cannon gives online self-promotion a skeptical audience inside the story. Reddit exchanges sit alongside police memos and voicemail transcripts, letting the murder investigation share space with the town’s gossip and public performances.
Try this if…
Readers who enjoy social-media satire woven into a small-town mystery, with a disappointed academic for a sleuth and romantic complications involving old classmates.
Good to know
The setup includes a victim with a bashed-in skull. A love triangle and Leo’s difficult relationship with her mother occupy space alongside the investigation.
A few distinguishing details
- An amateur sleuth who secretly moderated a snark group about the victim
More funny amateur sleuth
Sources & further reading
- A Zoom with a View by Jess Cannon | Penguin Random House
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