The Llama of Death

October 15, 2012
Zookeeper Theodora “Teddy” Bentley’s human relationships prove more taxing than her animal ones in Webb’s amusing third Gunn Zoo mystery (after 2010’s The Koala of Death). Teddy’s employer, Central California matron Aster Edwina Gunn, is responsible for sending her to the Gunn Landing Renaissance Faire to offer rides on Alejandro the llama. It’s hardly Aster’s fault, however, when Alejandro’s enclosure at the Faire provides the site for the murder by arrow of Victor Emerson, mail order minister and wedding chapel proprietor. The incompetent Deputy Elvin Dade, as acting sheriff, quickly muddies the case by arresting Caroline Piper Bentley Hufgraff O’Brien Petersen, Teddy’s oft-married mother. While the Faire’s colorful characters provide grist for Teddy’s investigation, her fugitive embezzler father makes an unexpected appearance. Animal lore and human foibles spiced with a hint of evil test Teddy’s patience and crime solving in this appealing cozy.

November 15, 2012
A Renaissance Faire provides both the setting and the weapon for a murder. Teddy Bentley, a zookeeper at central California's privately owned Gunn Zoo, has been given the job of supervising kiddie rides on Alejandro, the grumpy llama who luckily loves children. It is Alejandro's screams that direct Teddy and other Faire workers to the dead body of the Rev. Victor Emerson, who is acting as King Henry VIII. It looks as if Alejandro has stomped him to death, but closer scrutiny reveals a crossbow dart buried in his neck. Unluckily for Teddy and everyone else, her fiance, Sheriff Joe Rejas, is in Virginia on a Homeland Security training session, and the man who's doing his job, Deputy Elvin Dade, destroys all the evidence at the scene. He then arrests Teddy's mother, Caro, a much-married socialite who threatened to kill Emerson. With Joe unreachable and Elvin too stupid to find the real murderer, Teddy starts sleuthing. As it turns out, the Reverend was not only not a minister, but he was also an escaped murderer and blackmailer. His several vocations provide entirely too many suspects, including Elvin's prissy wife, who's not pleased to discover that her marriage isn't legal. When Teddy's father, wanted for embezzlement, secretly flies in from Costa Rica to help his jailed former spouse and the blonde bombshell who was playing Anne Boleyn is murdered, the pressure is on Teddy to discover the killer before he adds her to his list. Webb's zoo-based series (The Koala of Death, 2010, etc.) is informative about the habits of the zoo denizens and often amusing, even when the murderer is as easy to spot as in this outing.

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December 1, 2012

Zookeeper Theodora "Teddy" Bentley works her shifts at the local Renaissance Faire, but her heart isn't in it, especially since her fiance, Sheriff Joe Reyas, is out of town. The only pleasure she gets is seeing how children lovingly interact with her charge, llama Alejandro. Then, shockingly, Henry the Eighth (Victor Emerson, proprietor of the local wedding chapel) is found dead by crossbow in the llama's pen. Law enforcement makes a mess of the investigation by arresting Teddy's mom. Soon Teddy discovers that Victor was no reverend; rather he was an escaped convict with plenty of enemies. As she learns more about her Faire and zoo compatriots, she's alarmed by how many folks have brought dangerous secrets to their little California coastal community. And one of them finds Teddy's nosiness a threat. VERDICT Webb's third zoo series entry (after The Koala of Death) winningly melds a strong animal story with an engaging cozy amateur sleuth tale. Set at a relaxed pace with abundant zoo filler, the title never strays into too-cute territory, instead presenting the real deal. [See Prepub Alert, 8/20/12.]

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2012
Zookeeper Teddy Bentley is at the Gunn Landing (California) Renaissance Faire to give llama rides to children when mail-order reverend Victor Emerson is found dead in the llama pen, shot with a crossbow dart. With her sheriff fianc' out of town and unreachable for at least a week, Teddy begins her own investigation after the incompetent acting sheriff arrests Teddy's mother for the murder. She soon learns that the reverend married many of the local residents but was not legally able to do so, due to his using an assumed nameone of many secrets in his past. As Teddy investigates her friends and colleagues, she learns they also have dark sides. Of course, that's true of her own family, and one of those dark sides, her embezzler father, helps solve the murder. Quirky characters and the zookeeper frame story add zest to this engaging cozy mystery that will appeal to fans of Donna Andrews' Meg Langslow mysteries.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)