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"Parnell Hall's is the most logical mind in the business. There's no one else who consistently creates such entertaining and challenging puzzles."
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Cruciverbalists, rejoice!!! Pick up a pencil and get ready to solve the puzzle--and a puzzling murder--in this lively debut of a unique amateur detective, Miss Cora Felton, the reigning queen of crosswords. Cora's an eccentric old lady with a nationally syndicated puzzle column, an irresistible urge to poke into unsettling events, and a niece who's determined to keep her out of trouble. In a slyly amusing and wickedly suspenseful mystery, this delightful heroine takes her first crack at playing sleuth. Only this isn't fun and games....It's murder.
Violent crime is rare in tiny Bakerhaven. When the body of an unknown teenage girl turns up in the local cemetery, Police Chief Dale Harper finds himself investigating his first homicide. Nothing about this case is straightforward. Even a thorough search of the crime scene fails to reveal who she was, the murder weapon, or why the killer left her body in a graveyard minus her shoes. A cryptic message on a scrap of paper she carried seems to be a crossword puzzle clue. Could it have been left by the killer? If so, what does it mean?
Fortunately for Harper, Bakerhaven is the new home of Miss Cora Felton, the famed "Puzzle Lady" herself, whose popular crossword puzzle column graces newspapers nationwide. Yet bringing Cora Felton into this case could be his most costly mistake. For though she may look like someone's sweet old grandmother, behind those twinkling eyes and that slightly mysterious smile lies a woman with a whopping secret...and some hidden vices. What's worse, one whiff of mystery turns Miss Felton into a modern-day Miss Marple.
Now Cora is snooping through crime scenes, questioning witnesses, and gaining a lot of unwanted attention. It's just the sort of meddling, mischief-making behavior that drives Chief Harper to distraction and inspires many cross words from her long-suffering niece Sherry. But when another body turns up in a murder that hits much closer to home, Cora must find a killer--before she winds up in a black box three feet across...and six down.
A delicious brew of colorful characters, irresistible intrigue, and dazzling plot twists, Parnell Hall's A Clue for the Puzzle Lady is just what a mystery should be--a generous helping of fun and a puzzle that never fails to surprise and entertain.
The first clue came with a corpse. The body lay next to a gravestone in the Bakerhaven Cemetery. Police Chief Dale Harper stood in the pouring rain and looked down at it with displeasure. What was a corpse doing in the cemetery? Chief Harper was not unaware of the humor in the question. A body in the cemetery - the press would have a field day. Chief Harper frowned and wiped the water off his face.
I love puzzles and I love books so a book about puzzles was always going to be a winner. I loved it. Still it wasn't without it's issues and I'm sure not everyone will enjoy it.
Cora was hilarious. She's such a nutter. I loved the whole cast of characters, Cora, Chief Dale Harper, Sherry and Aaron. The dialogue was fast and snappy with lots of word play. The murder itself wasn't terribly original - it was pretty obvious who the murderer was from the start but I did enjoy getting there. And there were a lot of laughs along the way. 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4. ( )
Da grande amante dei cruciverba e dei gialli, non potevo farmi sfuggire questo libro che li fonde insieme: un'idea originale che l'autore ha saputo gestire con abilità, creando un cozy mistery piacevole e coinvolgente. Gli elementi del genere ci sono tutti: un delitto efferato in una rispettabile cittadina in cui tutti si conoscono, una protagonista brillante ed eccentrica (con l'immancabile nipote-spalla più posata e pragmatica) e dei toni leggeri e vagamente ironici; la tensione c'è, ma è più mentale che emotiva. Insomma un prodotto confezionato a puntino e pensato per un target specifico, che non resterà deluso. Il che non significa che sia un'opera priva di difetti: c'è qualche ingenuità di troppo e ogni tanto si nota che la trama è stata tirata per le lunghe, ma soprattutto i dialoghi (in particolare tra i due "giovani") risultano forzati. Non si può trasformare ogni conversazione in duello verbale, è divertente all'inizio ma in breve tempo diventa stucchevole. Sommando pro e contro, però, il bilancio resta comunque positivo: è un giallo senza pretese, a cui non si chiede altro che di intrattenerci per qualche ora e che assolve il compito piuttosto bene, lasciandoci anche la curiosità di leggere i volumi successivi. ( )
A major subgenre of mystery fiction is the amateur detective, and within that is the amateur detective with some job that seems antithetical to being a master sleuth. In this case, it's a crossword puzzle editor, though the difference between an editor and constructor is not made clear in the novel. The mystery is OK but padded out. The characters are fine, if a bit exaggerated. The weakest point is the dialog. There are repeated passages of multi-page two-person dialog clearly meant to be repartee of the "His Girl Friday" sort, but they just annoying.
This book was a disappointment for me. I was looking forward to a tricky mystery based on crossword puzzles and instead I got a formulaic cozy mystery with one-dimensional characters. The only bright spot in a pretty bleak piece of fiction was Aunt Cora - the puzzle lady herself. She was pretty sharp for an old lady who walks around half-sozzled all the time. I don't recommend this series at all. ( )
"Parnell Hall's is the most logical mind in the business. There's no one else who consistently creates such entertaining and challenging puzzles."
.
HTML:
Cruciverbalists, rejoice!!! Pick up a pencil and get ready to solve the puzzle--and a puzzling murder--in this lively debut of a unique amateur detective, Miss Cora Felton, the reigning queen of crosswords. Cora's an eccentric old lady with a nationally syndicated puzzle column, an irresistible urge to poke into unsettling events, and a niece who's determined to keep her out of trouble. In a slyly amusing and wickedly suspenseful mystery, this delightful heroine takes her first crack at playing sleuth. Only this isn't fun and games....It's murder.
Violent crime is rare in tiny Bakerhaven. When the body of an unknown teenage girl turns up in the local cemetery, Police Chief Dale Harper finds himself investigating his first homicide. Nothing about this case is straightforward. Even a thorough search of the crime scene fails to reveal who she was, the murder weapon, or why the killer left her body in a graveyard minus her shoes. A cryptic message on a scrap of paper she carried seems to be a crossword puzzle clue. Could it have been left by the killer? If so, what does it mean?
Fortunately for Harper, Bakerhaven is the new home of Miss Cora Felton, the famed "Puzzle Lady" herself, whose popular crossword puzzle column graces newspapers nationwide. Yet bringing Cora Felton into this case could be his most costly mistake. For though she may look like someone's sweet old grandmother, behind those twinkling eyes and that slightly mysterious smile lies a woman with a whopping secret...and some hidden vices. What's worse, one whiff of mystery turns Miss Felton into a modern-day Miss Marple.
Now Cora is snooping through crime scenes, questioning witnesses, and gaining a lot of unwanted attention. It's just the sort of meddling, mischief-making behavior that drives Chief Harper to distraction and inspires many cross words from her long-suffering niece Sherry. But when another body turns up in a murder that hits much closer to home, Cora must find a killer--before she winds up in a black box three feet across...and six down.
A delicious brew of colorful characters, irresistible intrigue, and dazzling plot twists, Parnell Hall's A Clue for the Puzzle Lady is just what a mystery should be--a generous helping of fun and a puzzle that never fails to surprise and entertain.
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