Actual rating 3.5 Living gargoyles, vegan alchemists, smuggling rings, and hidden tunnels, oh my. The Accidental Alchemist is the second of my recent delve into cozy mysteries, and it does an effective job at feeding the readers hints as to the culprit of the the murder and at providing believable suspects other than the true murderer. The characters are generally solid, but some of Zoe’s characterization comes across a little too heavy handed and some of her backstory reveals are somewhat intrusive/distracting on the present day narrative. Dorian, our living gargoyle, is very likable and often a source of levity or mild hijinks that supplied some of my favorite scenes from the book. The romance is decent, though a little heavy-handed at first meeting, and I found the cooking aspects of the book somewhat boring. I would have liked more actual alchemy in the narrative as well