Thanksgiving Angels

March 1, 2015
A Boston Brahmin-turned-woman of the people helps solve a murder.Mercy Allcutt left Boston to get away from her stiff, wealthy, ultracritical parents. Thanks to an inheritance, she lives comfortably in Los Angeles, where she works as a secretary for private eye Ernie Templeton. Her parents have purchased a mansion in Pasadena and ordered Mercy and her sister, Chloe, who's married to movie mogul Harvey Mann, to come for Thanksgiving week. Mercy takes her toy poodle Buttercup, sure to annoy her mother, who dislikes dogs. A seance her mother has arranged with Daisy Majesty is attended by Mercy, Chloe, and several neighbors: the Pinkertons, Mrs. Bissel, and movie costumier Harold Kincaid. Just as they exit the seance room with perfect alibis, another guest, Mrs. Winkworth, plunges to her death from the staircase. It quickly becomes obvious that the tiny lady could not have accidentally fallen over the high railing, and everyone agrees that she was too self-centered and nasty to kill herself, so it must be murder. Daisy calls her fiance, Sam Rotondo, a detective on the Pasadena force; Mercy's parents insist that she call her boss to come solve the crime. Several other people are less lucky in their alibis: Mrs. Winkworth's unhappy secretary; party-crashing movie star Lola de la Monica; Harvey Mann, who has just told Lola that her contract won't be renewed; and the Allcutts' Japanese houseboy, who were all upstairs. Even Mrs. Winkworth's daughter and grandson loathe her. Daisy gets to hear most of the interviews when she takes notes for Ernie. Fancying herself a detective, she discovers several clues even as she makes herself a target. Duncan's decision to combine the talents of Daisy (Spirits Revived, 2014, etc.) and Mercy (Fallen Angels, 2011, etc.) doesn't strengthen the mystery, but the period details are charming.

April 1, 2015
It's just one week. That is what Mercy Allcutt keeps telling herself as she packs her bags and heads to Pasadena to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with her parents. Even though Mercy knows that her prim and proper mother, Honoria, vehemently disapproves of Mercy's decision to take a job working as a secretary for PI Ernie Templeton, Mercy is almost positive that she can last seven days with her judgmental mother without somebody getting killed. As it turns out, although Honoria doesn't hold back one jot on her criticism of Mercy, it isn't one of the Allcutts who winds up dead but rather Mrs. Lurlene Winkworth, who, much to Mercy's surprise, is even more of a bitter, vituperative battle-ax than Mercy's mother. The latest sprightly addition to Duncan's Mercy Allcutt series (Fallen Angels, 2011; Angels of Mercy, 2012) is a delightful concoction composed of equal measures of charmingly quirky characters, fascinating 1920s period details, and just the right dash of dry wit.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)