Customer Reviews

$10,000 in Small, Unmarked Puzzles: A Puzzle Lady Mystery (Puzzle Lady Mysteries)

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Lawyer Becky Baldwin persuades Cora "the Puzzle Lady" Felton to deliver $10,000 from an unnamed client to a blackmailer. Cora arrives at the abandoned gas station where she is to make the drop in the dumpster. She opens the lid to dump the money inside only the corpse of a man hit in the head stares back at her. Protruding from his pocket is a Sudoku puzzle. Adding to her concern, the money is stolen.

Brookhaven, Connecticut Police Chief Dale Harper leads the murder investigation. He is frustrated (as are readers) with Cora's stonewalling his questions. Becky refuses to reveal the name of her client, but Cora and her friends believe her ex-husband Melvin did it again. Cora realizes that the killer is playing chess with her and her queens are her beloved niece Sherry and her beloved infant grandniece.

Readers of the series know what to expect in a Puzzle Lady whodunit (see The Puzzle Lady vs. the Sudoku Lady and The KenKen Killings) and Parnell Hall and Will Stoltz (the puzzles) deliver on the formula a fun thriller. Fast-paced except for some of arguing amongst Cora and her posse, fans of Sudoku will want to solve the puzzles and ergo the mystery.

Harriet Klausner

This is a strong installment in Hall's popular, long-running series with feisty "Puzzle Lady" detective Cora Felton. The story begins when lawyer Becky Baldwin enlists Cora to make a blackmail payment on behalf of an unnamed client. Instructed to drop $10,000 in the dumpster of an abandoned gas station, Cora arrives there only to find a corpse in the dumpster. With Sherry and Aaron sidelined for much of this entry, as Sherry has just given birth to their daughter, Cora is off on another twisty murder investigation, staying one step ahead of her friendly nemesis Chief Harper. As usual with Hall, there's some very funny dialogue, a clever plot and (of course) puzzles associated with every body. There's at least one plot twist that experienced mystery readers will find easy to predict (and wonder why Cora doesn't), but all is redeemed with a socko ending that packs a wallop.