Arsenic and Old Puzzles: A Puzzle Lady Mystery (Puzzle Lady Mysteries)
As might be guessed from the title, this entry in the Puzzle Lady series has a plot reminiscent of the play and the 1944 Cary Grant film, Arsenic and Old Lace. A nephew comes home to visit his aunts, who run a bed-and-breakfast in the Connecticut town of Bakerhaven, with the B&B conveniently located next door to the home of the nephew’s heiress girlfriend. An elderly guest dies after drinking poisoned elderberry wine, a nice, genteel sort of crime. The chief of police calls in Cora Felton, the Puzzle Lady, because left with the body is a Sudoku puzzle, and then a crossword puzzle turns up under the doormat. Oddly, though, the crossword is an old one, published in the Puzzle Lady’s column some years earlier. More bodies and more old puzzles turn up, and the list of suspects grows, along with echoes of the film. The nephew gets one thing right when he declares that Cora’s zaniness rubs off on everyone, to the delight of fans old and new. --Karen Muller