Chip Off the Ice Block Murder

March 15, 2014
A daughter tries to clear her father's name when he's implicated in a murder she can't believe he committed. Shay O'Hanlon's bags are packed for a quick New Year's Eve getaway with her girlfriend, JT Bordeaux, one of Minnesota's finest cops. Their relationship has been going strong, and they're looking forward to stoking the fire with a few quiet days in Duluth. But then Shay gets a call saying her father hasn't shown up for work at the bar he owns, the Leprechaun, on one of the busiest nights of the year. An on-again, off-again drunk, Peter O'Hanlon isn't particularly reliable, and Shay heads over to take his place behind the bar even though slinging beers is the last thing on her mind; she needs to make sure the Lep makes it through the night in the black. Luckily, a stranger named Lisa Vecoli wanders in looking for Pete and ends up giving Shay a hand, along with Nick "Coop" Cooper, Shay's dearest friend. In fact, it's a good thing Pete is MIA, since before the night is out, a police detective comes looking for him: One of Pete's guns has been found frozen solid in a block of ice along with a body. Shay and JT cancel their trip so they can find Pete and clear his name. Their only clue is that he appears to have been ready to sell the Lep to a mysterious group called Subsidy Renovations Inc. With a cast of characters too numerous and flatly quirky to track, Chandler's latest (Pickle in the Middle Murder, 2013, etc.) is her most confusing yet. Developing the minor figures more fully would lead to a bigger payoff when the final twist comes.

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