Dead Man's Puzzle

February 16, 2009
Near the start of Hall’s fast-paced 10th Puzzle Lady mystery (after 2008’s The Sudoku Puzzle Murders
), Dale Harper, the Bakerhaven, Conn., police chief, asks crossword columnist Cora Felton to solve a crossword puzzle found at the death bed of a 92-year-old cancer patient, Herbert Overmeyer. Since Cora’s crosswording cohort and niece, Sherry Carter, and Sherry’s husband, Aaron Grant, are honeymooning, Cora turns for help to portly puzzle maker Harvey Beerbaum. When it turns out Overmeyer died of arsenic poisoning, the authorities have a homicide case on their hands. Meanwhile, Cora and Chief Harper uncover the victim’s connection to a 50-year-old convenience store robbery in Alabama. The suspense rises with the murders of two unlucky souls silenced to protect the killer’s identity. Snappy dialogue and a clever resolution—plus an assortment of crosswords and sudokus—will satisfy series fans.

February 15, 2009
Though she's just trying to mind her own business, the Puzzle Lady stirs up more trouble.

Cora Felton is on her own while her niece Sherry, the real cruciverbalist, enjoys an African safari honeymoon. Cora's hope that she won't need to solve any crosswords in the interim ends when Chief Harper brings her a puzzle found with the body of 92-year-old Mr. Overmeyer. Once Cora gets a friend to solve it, the answers seem meaningless. But Cora pushes the coroner to do a tox screen that turns up arsenic. Unable to resist a mystery that doesn't require crossword skill, Cora accompanies the Chief to the decrepit cabin where Overmeyer lived and finds a gun later identified as the weapon in a robbery-murder long ago. Meantime, Sherry's ex, Dennis, is hanging around town trying to impress Sherry by solving the crime; a stranger shows up claiming to be part of a stock deal the dead man was involved with; and a bunch of self-proclaimed heirs arrive looking for pickings. Then Overmeyer's next-door neighbor is murdered, perhaps because Dennis told a TV interviewer that said neighbor saw someone at the crime scene. Next to go is the mysterious stranger involved in the stock scheme. More murders only make Cora more eager to solve the puzzle.

If the amusing antics of ebullient Cora (The Sudoku Puzzle Murders, 2008, etc.) aren't enough for you, there are always the requisite crossword puzzles along with a sudoku puzzle to enjoy.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

March 1, 2009
The Puzzle Lady series rolls merrily along. Cora Feltons niece, Sherry, has finally married her longtime fianc', Aaron, and the two are on their honeymoon. Cora figures she can muddle by for a couple of weeks, but she doesnt count on a dead body, a mysterious puzzle that must be solved immediately, and the very real risk that, finally, her secret will be revealed: Cora, the well-known crossword-puzzle composer, is a fraud. She couldnt create, or solve, a crossword puzzle if her life depended on itand this time, it might. This is a delightful series for fans of puzzles and cozy mysteries. Cora Felton, the clever amateur sleuth whose niece secretly writes the crosswords published under Coras name, is a charming heroine, very much in the Miss Marple/Jessica Fletcher vein, though perhaps a bit more acid-tongued and a bit less cuddly. The Puzzle Lady novels are definitely formulaic, but theyre so gosh-darned good that its hard to imagine anyone minding very much.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)