Arsenic and Old Puzzles
A Puzzle Lady Mystery
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4.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The Puzzle Lady embarks on another adventure involving one classic movie and featuring new puzzles by Will Shortz
When an elderly boarder at a Bakerhaven bed-and-breakfast drops dead during afternoon tea, there's nothing particularly suspicious about it—except for the Sudoku in his jacket pocket. But when a second body turns up in the window seat and an autopsy shows both men were poisoned with elderberry wine, the Puzzle Lady suspects she's dealing with a cold-blooded killer who for some reason is copying the Cary Grant movie Arsenic and Old Lace, in which two old ladies who run a boarding house poison elderly widowers and bury them in the basement. More murders, more puzzles, and a grave dug in the cellar seem to cement the theory.
Ordinarily, Cora would eat a case like this for breakfast, but for once she can't figure it out. And she's not sure if the clues don't add up, or if the much-married Puzzle Lady is just distracted by being involved in her first romantic entanglement in years.
Arsenic and Old Puzzles is filled with laughs, mayhem, and fun new puzzles by Will Shortz. Mystery and puzzle fans will find much to enjoy in this latest treat from Parnell Hall.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Feisty Cora Felton, who fronts as the Puzzle Lady for niece Sherry Carter, is at her cantankerous, obfuscating, trouble-stirring best in Hall's delightful 14th Bakerhaven, Conn., romp (after 2012's $10,000 in Small, Unmarked Puzzles). When the body of an unidentified tourist is found at the bed-and-breakfast of elderly sisters Charlotte and Edith Guilford, police chief Dale Harper calls Cora for help with the sudoku puzzle in the tourist's pocket. Cora is no good at puzzles, but quickly notices the smell of almonds, which suggests cyanide and thus foul play. As additional puzzles, bodies, and clues pile up, a connection to the 1944 Frank Capra film Arsenic and Old Lace becomes clear. Even more fun than the whodunit is the romantic confusion Cora sows among pretty lawyer Becky Baldwin; the Guilfords' nephew, Alan; and Alan's girlfriend, Arlene Winnington.
