Hit and Run

July 7, 2014
In Anthony Award finalist Balzo’s spirited third Main Street Murder mystery (after 2012’s Dead Ends), Wisconsin journalist AnnaLise Griggs is still visiting her hometown, Sutherton, N.C., where she’s acknowledged as the love-child of the wealthiest man in town, Dickens Hart. The proprietor of a “North Carolina High Country rip-off of the Playboy Club concept,” Hart wants to locate any other children he may have fathered, and an elaborate Thanksgiving weekend is planned for past loves and their appropriate-aged off-spring. Before the turkey is served, Hart is found lying naked in bed with his head bashed in—and AnnaLise is the prime suspect. The supporting cast includes several colorful Sutherton citizens and a motley group of potential heirs accompanied by their hopeful mothers. AnnaLise will remind Southern cozy fans of Kathleen Haines’s Sarah Booth Delaney, Carolyn Hart’s Annie Darling, and Margaret Maron’s Deborah Knott. Agent: Nancy Yost, Nancy Yost Literary Agency.

September 1, 2014
A Lothario's reunion with his former lovers is spoiled by his murder.Journalist AnnaLise Griggs (Dead Ends, 2012, etc.) is dumbfounded at Dickens Hart's plan to gather all his former lovers and their children at his palatial estate over Thanksgiving weekend. AnnaLise has barely adjusted to the news that Hart is her biological father, and though she wants no part of his vast fortune, the idea of meeting potential siblings makes her queasy. As Thanksgiving approaches, out of a list of 63 potential baby mamas, only three show up: 70-year old Rose Boccaccio, Dickens' first love, who brings along her 50-something dentist son, Eddie; former cocktail waitress Lucinda Puckett, accompanied by her 35-year old stockbroker son, Tyler; and Sugar Capri, who busted up Dickens' marriage to Joy Tamarack, his third wife. Except Sugar's teenage daughter, Lacey, couldn't also be Dickens'; Joy confided to her best friend, AnnaLise, that her husband had a vasectomy when they were married. AnnaLise's relationship to her possible co-heirs becomes fraught when she learns that her mom, Daisy, has no health insurance and has already racked up $83,000 in uncovered medical bills. It hits the boiling point when Dickens is discovered in bed, conked by a bottle of Dom Perignon. Now the police suspect that AnnaLise may have taken out her dad before he could put anyone else into his will. Can she clear her name by finding the real killer? AnnaLise continues her bracing run in Balzo's third Main Street Murders entry.

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August 1, 2014

When journalist AnnaLise Griggs returned to her North Carolina hometown, she learned a lot about her past, including the identity of her father, Dickens Hart. A legendary womanizer and founder of the Playboy-esque White Tail Lodge, Hart asks AnnaLise to help him gather his former lovers--with their (and possibly his) children--for Thanksgiving Day. The group has a lot of history, and they're not necessarily in the holiday spirit, but when one of them is found dead, AnnaLise must use all of her investigative skills to discover the truth behind the killing. VERDICT Balzo's third entry in her "Main Street" murder mysteries (after Dead Ends) brings the NC High Country setting to vivid life, while intriguing interpersonal relationships keep the plot moving.

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September 1, 2014
The third Main Street mystery finds North Carolina journalist AnnaLise Griggs hot on the trail of another murderer, and, as usual, the case has a personal connection to the sleuth. Recently, Griggs discovered that she's one of many children of Dickens Hart, the notorious and extremely fertile lothario (any resemblance to Hugh Hefner being, presumably, entirely parodic). Hart has the idea to host a massive Thanksgiving party at his White Tail Lodge, at which all of his former lovers and various children will be guests. It's a dicey idea at best, but Griggs, who's been hired to ghostwrite the man's autobiography, senses an opportunity for some juicy material. What she gets instead is murder and a veritable smorgasbord of suspects. Comparisons to Margaret Maron's Deborah Knott mysteries and Mary Daheim's Alpine series are obvious and apt (the Knott books have a North Carolina setting, and Daheim's feature a female journalist in a rural environment), and fans of those authors should find this new series from the author of the longer-running Maggy Thorsen series very much to their liking.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)