Miss Gentle and the Case of the Very Flat Monk (Magic & Mystery, #1) by Travis Baldree Narrator: Travis Baldree
Format: audiobook, ebook
Source: borrowed from Amazon Kindle Unlimited
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy fantasy, fantasy, fantasy mystery
Series: Magic & Mystery #1
Pages: 33
Length: 43 minutes
Published by Amazon Original Stories on July 28, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon
Goodreads
A peculiar detective takes on a monastic murder mystery in a darkly funny fantasy short story by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Legends & Lattes series.
Nobody really liked Brother Gorm, but his untimely and abrupt descent from the abbey’s bell tower has the Order of Venerous the Petulant on edge. Desperate to settle the case before the bishop returns, the abbot enlists the highly unorthodox investigator Miss Gentle. As she clanks through the abbey in a full suit of armor, the cantankerous detective has no problem asking awkward questions—but will she get any answers?
Travis Baldree’s Miss Gentle and the Case of the Very Flat Monk is part of the Magic & Mystery collection, puzzle-box mysteries from top fantasy authors. They can be read or listened to in one enchanting sitting.
My Review:
This is technically the first story in the Magic & Mystery collection, but I couldn’t resist reading/listening to The Lion’s Tusk first because I had to find out what that title was about. AND I wanted a visit with Ana and Din.
Curiosity about parts that no lion should possess aside, this is otherwise an excellent story to open this fantasy mystery series because it has plenty of both. Along with a heaping helping of the cozy fantasy vibe that the author is famous for. (Not that this story is set in the world of Legends & Lattes – as far as we know – but it feels like it could have been.)
The beginning is a classic. Brother Gorm was dead, to begin with. He was also more than a bit gormless in the classic sense, having been stupid, slow-witted, and lacking common sense. In this particular case also friendless, hapless, hopeless and clumsy as an ox.
It’s not actually a surprise that Brother Gorm is dead. The surprise is that in spite of his terrible personality, it doesn’t seem as if anyone actually did him in. Even if he did fall from the top of a parapet that it should have been impossible to fall from without a bit of ‘help’. Help that there’s no evidence whatsoever that he had.
Which is where Miss Gentle comes into the picture. She sounds like an irascible little old lady. She looks like an armored knight festooned with holy relics. She’s purported to be the best detective in the world. All she wants in return for solving the abbey’s little mystery and giving the remaining brethren back their piece of mind is yet another relic to add to her collection.
Not money, not gems, not any ‘worldly’ goods, but one, particular relic, The abbey’s – or at least the abbot’s – pride and joy, the priceless Tongue of Saint Caddlemore. Well, it was priceless. Now it’s the price of a solution to the mystery, and the answer to the question of whether or not the late Brother Gorm(less) can be buried in consecrated ground. Or something like that.
Miss Gentle leads the Abbot – and the entire abbey – on a merry chase in pursuit of the solution. It’s only after she’s left with her prize that the reader learns the rest of the story. And it’s a doozy.
Escape Rating A-: I listened to this one, and it’s read by the author. In fact, it’s read EXCELLENTLY by the author. If you can get any of his work in audio, he’s just right to read his stories, as rare as that is. And believe me, it is.
This story is just plain fun. We know Miss Gentle has a secret hidden inside her armor. It’s hard not to guess THAT much. But the nature of her secret wasn’t quite what I thought it was. In the end, little of this story was what I thought it was, in ways that reminded me a bit of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Penric and Desdemona series. Because it turns out this is also a world where the gods are real and do real things in the world.
In the case of this particular god, Venerous the Petulant, it turns out that he loved cats. Unfortunately for Brother Gorm, he truly was gormless. Not only did he not love cats himself, but he served a god that did. Very much, in fact. And was too slow-witted not to visit his own dislike of the abbey’s resident mouser upon said mouser’s person at every opportunity.
The cat was bound to get back at him, sooner or later. And their god was bound to help the cat and not the monk.
And Miss Gentle was bound to figure it all out. Not because she’s a great detective, but because she has a great secret. A secret that will keep her tramping about the countryside searching for relics as long as her magic – and her will – hold out.
This was just plain fun. At first, it’s a bit slow to get started and that’s deliberate. Miss Gentle is building up her schtick and it’s working on both the Abbot and the reader. He has to believe, we have to get caught up, and we both do. In the end, he decides he’s better off if he doesn’t know Miss Gentle’s truth as long as his problem is solved. Which it is. For the reader, the final reveal is a real belly laugh of a conclusion.
I’m definitely looking forward to reading/listening to the rest of the Magic & Mystery collection, because so far it’s a hoot!
