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Summary
Summary
Amateur sleuth and crossword impresario Cora Felton is asked to solve a puzzle, only to find that it's been stolen--and a murder weapon has been left in its place.
When the obnoxious sixteen-year-old Peggy Dawson asks Cora Felton to solve a puzzle for her, Cora is delighted to find that the puzzle has been stolen. She is less delighted, however, when a blood-stained knife is found in its place.
Soon a body is discovered in the middle of Main Street, and Cora has a murder investigation on her hands. It does not help matters when she hears that her least favorite ex-husband, Melvin, is in town pulling a real estate scam, particularly when she discovers that Melvin may have purchased the knife. Now it's up to the Puzzle Lady to figure out what really happened, in The Purloined Puzzle , from the New York Times' bestselling author Parnell Hall.
Author Notes
Parnell Hall is a part-time actor, a former private detective, singer/songwriter, and full-time writer of novels and screenplays. He writes the Stanley Hastings Mystery series, the Steve Winslow courtroom drama series, and the Puzzle Lady Mystery series. He also writes under the pseudonym J. P. Hailey. He wrote the screenplay to the 1984 movie C.H.U.D.
Hall co-authored New York Times bestseller Smooth Operator with Stuart Woods.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Clever banter elevates Edgar-finalist Hall's 19th mystery featuring Bakerhaven, Conn., puzzle lady Cora Felton (after 2017's A Puzzle to Be Named Later). When 16-year-old Peggy Dawson approaches Cora with a crossword puzzle that the girl thinks is important to solve, Cora foists her off on Harvey Beerbaum, a crossword expert. After the puzzle disappears, Harvey refers Peggy to police chief Dale Harper. Naturally, the puzzle, when found, connects to a murder-that of stabbing victim Fred Winkler-as does a bloody knife found by Peggy's brother, Johnny, in his room. The police settle on Johnny as a suspect in Winkler's death, but then find an even better one: Cora's ex-husband, Melvin Crabtree, whose planned tell-all book, Confessions of a Trophy Husband: My Life with the Puzzle Lady, threatens Cora's secret-that she's the public face for the crossword puzzles created by her niece Sherry Grant. A barrage of insults, put-downs, confusions, and double entendres will keep fans of light humorous mysteries happily turning the pages. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
It takes both a crossword puzzle and a sudoku to provide the clues that solve several murders.Although Cora Felton excels at solving sudokus, she doesn't have anything like the crossword-puzzle savvy that would justify the lucrative career she's built as the Puzzle Lady. In fact, few people know that her niece, Sherry, actually creates and solves the puzzles. When teen Peggy Dawson begs Cora to solve a mysterious crossword that some unknown person has sent to her, Cora enlists her friend Harvey Beerbaum, a real cruciverbalist, to helpbut when they all get to the girl's house, the puzzle has vanished. Peggy goes to local police chief Dale Harper and harasses him until he agrees to find her puzzle. Harper sends deputy Dan Finley, who drags Cora along. Peggy's brother, Johnny, refuses to let them search his room but soon phones the police to report that he's found not the puzzle but a bloodstained knife. The corpse who probably bloodied the knife is that of a construction worker staying in a motel near his job site. Cora's happy days turn to dross when she spots Melvin Crabtree, the ex she loves to hate, claiming to be back in town to work with the realtor who employs Johnny Dawson, presumably on another of Melvin's fake real estate scams. Johnny, arrested by the police, hires Cora's clever lawyer friend Becky Baldwin, who quickly springs her client when Cora gets the coroner to admit that the time of death meant the knife couldn't have been the murder weapon. Turning on a dime, the police then arrest Melvin. More puzzles appear, including a sudoku that hints that Johnny is guilty. Once Cora learns that Melvin has a book contract to write an expos about his life with the Puzzle Lady, she realizes that she must not only clear him, but do so in a way that forces him to keep her secret.Using Hall's trademark humor and panache, the Puzzle Lady (A Puzzle to Be Named Later, 2017, etc.) finds yet another clever way to get herself out of yet another tricky situation. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Nineteen years haven't slowed down Hall's Puzzle Lady. Known for her grandmotherly charm and popular crossword-puzzle books, Cora Felton is actually neither a grandmother nor capable of even solving a crossword puzzle, let alone creating one. Being comfortable with deception, however, does make her very good at her actual job doing investigative work for an attorney in her small town of Bakerhaven, Connecticut. When Cora's ex- husband arrives in town, she's certain he's up to no good. His subsequent arrest for murder confirms her suspicions, but, while Melvin is certainly a rascal, Cora doesn't think he's a murderer. In fact, she believes that the crossword puzzles a local teen claims to have received may hold the key to finding the real killer. On the other hand, if Melvin's real reason for being in town is to gather more material for a tell-all book about the masquerading puzzle lady, Cora may just let him rot in jail. Another quick-witted, enjoyable cozy from genre veteran Hall.--Keefe, Karen Copyright 2010 Booklist
