Last year J.R. narrated his first book, Biggie and the Poisoned Politician . This year Biggie is busy directing and starring in a production of HMS Pinafore, while J.R. camps and spends time about town. It hardly seems they'd get involved in murder. But they do when they go to fetch mortician Monk Carter, who is late for rehearsal. They discover Monk dead, sprawled out on his blue carpet with pink roses.
Early reports cite seizure or heart attack.
But Biggie learns that every one of Monk's ribs had been broken and his sternum had been crushed. It was just like a big old grizzly bear came in here and gave him a bear hug. Biggie and the Mangled Mortician is an exuberant book that brings a different voice to the mystery mart. Ex-police officer and current graduate student Mali Anderson is on her way to meet her nephew when she hears a child's cries. Running to the scene, she finds a dazed boy and her friend Erskin Harding, tour director of the Uptown Children's Chorus, dead in the rain-soaked street.