Curtains for Miss Plym

February 15, 2016
At the start of Delaney’s delightful sequel to 2015’s Purebred Dead, retired schoolteacher Mary McGill and her faithful cocker spaniel, Millie, arrive early one morning at St. Mark’s community hall in Santa Louisa, Calif., to prepare for the town’s annual spring rummage sale. Inside the hall, Millie growls and heads for a makeshift dressing area, in which they find wealthy Emilie Plym, slumped in a chair, dressed in her bed clothes, and quite obviously dead. The local police chief later tells Mary that the elderly woman was strangled. But who would want to murder harmless Emilie? At the historic Victorian house that’s been home to the Plyms for generations, Mary encounters several shady and hostile characters, from Emilie’s caretakers to family members, who might have had motive to do her in. Missing Plym money is soon the talk of the gossipy small town. Animal lovers will enjoy this dog-focused cozy with its appealing characters, both two- and four-legged.

February 1, 2016
A retired California schoolteacher and her cocker spaniel help solve several murders. Along with her dog, Millie, Mary McGill is very active in Santa Louisa's community affairs. So, naturally, she arrives early at St. Mark's community center to help set up for a rummage sale. She's disturbed to find the door open and more than disturbed to find the body of Miss Emilie Plym inside. Because Mary's niece, Ellen, is married to Police Chief Dan Dunham, Mary is privy to inside information and is no stranger to murder (Purebred Dead, 2015). Miss Plym lived alone in a mansion on several large lots in town, supported, like her recently deceased sister, by money from a trust fund. Despite the help she had from Lorraine and Caleb Duxworth, who lived over the garage on her property, Miss Plym had lately become a little vague, and her nephew, Richard, and niece, Cassandra, had recently arrived in town with the idea of putting her in a nursing home. As Dan investigates and Mary trawls for gossip all over town, they discover that Miss Plym had been withdrawing large sums of money from her trust fund account, money that's now vanished. When Miss Plym's snoopy former home care nurse is also murdered, Dan and Mary realize the missing funds are the key. Mary's hunch about where it may be sets up an encounter with the murderer. Mary and Millie are such engaging characters that the time spent with them makes up for some of the weaknesses in this pleasant cozy.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 1, 2016
When Mary McGill discovers the strangled body of Miss Emilie Plym, still in her bathrobe, while opening the church for the rummage sale, she can't believe that anyone would want to harm the elderly village favorite. With the help of her beloved dog, Millie, Mary investigates the victim's niece and nephew, as well as her caretakers, and discovers that there were several people who had reasons for wanting to see Miss Plym dead. Matters are complicated further when a second murder occurs, and the victim is one of Miss Plym's home nurses. Delaney is skilled in setting up obvious clues that turn out to be something very different. Mary is smart and snoops in a realistic manner throughout her small Santa Louisa, California, community. Her nephew-in-law, police chief Dan, respects her information without the usual power plays that are found in amateur-sleuth stories. Plenty of wit and humor round out this intelligent, appealing mystery. Fans of Laurien Berenson should be introduced to this series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)