$10,000 in Small, Unmarked Puzzles: A Puzzle Lady Mystery (Puzzle Lady Mysteries)
Cora Felton, the Puzzle Lady, is in a tizzy as she drives her niece, Sherry, and her husband to the Bakerhaven, Connecticut, hospital to have their first baby. There is good reason for the tizzy. Sherry, as fans of this series’ know, is the real genius behind Cora’s crossword puzzles, and if Sherry can’t write them, will Cora be outed as a fraud? Complicating matters further, the town’s lawyer, Becky Baldwin, seeks Cora’s assistance with a blackmail case. Following the first clue, which comes in the form of a Sudoku (Cora knows her Sudoku better than she does her crosswords), the Puzzle Lady sets off to do the drop of $10,000 in blackmail money. Simple task, it would seem, until Cora finds a body in the Dumpster. What follows is a farcical romp involving after-hours hospital visits to get Sherry’s assistance with crossword-puzzle clues, snatching the Sudoku and crossword clues before the police find them, and dealing with the arrival of an ex-husband, judicial threats, and nighttime wanderings through a cemetery. Great fun for series fans, who will be pleased to know that mother and daughter are doing well. --Karen Muller