Back to School Murder (Lucy Stone Mysteries, No. 4) (Paperback)

by Leslie Meier (Author)
Key Phrases: Carol Crane, Tinker's Cove, Miss Tilley (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews
The Maine village of Tinker's Cove is again awash in murder and mayhem (Trick or Treat Murder, 1996, etc.), but not to worry- -Lucy Stone, wife to contractor Bill, mother of four; part-timer at the local paper; evening student at the local college; and above all, amateur sleuth--is on the case. Carol Crane, new assistant principal at the elementary school, has rescued a disabled child from inside the school just minutes before an explosive device goes off--an anonymous warning call to the police had evacuated everyone else. Lucy, helping Pennysaver editor Ted Stillings write the story, is intrigued by Carol's past, in which heroic rescues seem to have figured prominently, and by her connections to Lucy's seductive English professor Quentin Rea and to the town's fundamentalist preacher DeWalt Smythe and school politics. Carol's background assumes more urgency when she's discovered smothered to death in her apartment and well-liked high-school coach Josh Cunningham is charged with the murder. While police chief Crowley rests on his laurels, Lucy, unconvinced, scurries from home to job, to class, to daughter's day-care, to supermarket, finally, between chores, engineering a near deadly confrontation with the real killer. A tad more substantial than the author's previous outings, but still bogged down in domestic detail, vacuous dialogue, and our heroine's mopey musings. Harmless ho-hum. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
It's back-to-school time in the peaceful Maine town of Tinker's Cove, and for mother-of-four Lucy Stone it isn't a moment too soon. But when the assistant principal is murdered, and the most popular teacher at the school is arrested for the crime, Lucy's determined to juggle family, job, and night school to find the real killer.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Kensington (September 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1575663309
• ISBN-13: 978-1575663302
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #406,709 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 4 in The Lucy Stone Mystery Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing after Christmas Cookie Murder, August 27, 2000

By	Barbara O'Neill (Danville, NH USA) - See all my reviews

After reading The Christmas Cookie Murder, I decided to read Back to School Murder because, well . . . it's back to school time.

I was so disappointed. I couldn't believe these two novels were written by the same person! In Back to School Murder, Lucy seems more concerned about her feelings for her night school professor, her older kids are brats and Bill is a total jerk( which could account for Lucy's feeling toward her night school professor.) In Christmas Cookie Murder, Lucy came across more sympathetically, her older kids weren't quite as bratty and Bill's moments of being a jerk were not as many. The mystery seemed to take back seat to the trials and tribulations of Lucy Stone. By the time I finished the book, I didn't care who the murderer was, nor did I care about any of the characters.

When I posed this opinion to a mystery fan list, it was suggested I skip the author's earlier works and try the one coming out in November, Turkey Day Murder. I think I will take this suggestion.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, April 12, 1999

By A Customer

Although I've read and enjoyed the other mysteries in this series, I felt that this was a departure from the underlying theme of the series, namely a mother and her interactions with her family as she goes about trying to solve mysteries. In this story, Lucy was preoccupied with herself, and her family took a backseat as she tried to discover a murderer and contemplated an affair; a not-so-believable twist in the plot. The reader gets a confusing view of Lucy's husband: on the one hand, he's a traditionalist who wants his wife at home; on the other, he'd like her to do what she wants. In the other books, one gets a sense that this is a good marriage. In this book, one wonders what these two have in common. The murder story even took a back seat to Lucy's preoccupation with herself. Was this a muder mystery or a woman's struggle with mid-life crisis? In the end, the resolution is anticlimactic, and the reader is left with some negative thoughts toward Lucy Stone.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SUNDAY AT THE BARBECUE WITH LUCY STONE, July 4, 2001

By	Robert Edler "Master Of Mystery" (Saint Louis, Missouri USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As I said in an earlier review, summer afternoons are perfect for exploring the exploits of Tinker's Cove murder meddling sleuth Lucy Stone. So I decided to use my second of three books as an excuse to crash under the tree at the annual family burnt meat ritual. So while the pork steaks (a part of the pig known only to residents of Saint Louis) were slowly cooking on the grill I was quickly turning the pages of Leslie Meier's Back To School Murder.

The start of this adventure is a real blast - a high noon bomb blast at the grade school Lucy's daughter Sara attends. Luckily all the children escape injury including one who is rescued in the nick of time by assistant principal, Carol Crane. But within a couple of chapters she is rewarded for her heroism by being murdered. So, who done it? Was it Mr. Mopps, the school janitor, the high school science teacher, Lucy's night school English professor, or the sleazy minister? As usual Lucy is convinced the wrong person has been arrested for the murder and so she sets out to solve the crime herself.

Two complications to Lucy's solving the crime as well as being able to meet her husband's demands for having dinner on the table at six sharp each day have been added in this book. First, she has become a part-time working mother (at the Pennysaver weekly newspaper) and second she has returned to college. But we all know that this won't stop her from discovering the identity of the murderer at the end of this very enjoyable book. Only this time I was at least a chapter or several pages ahead of her sleuthing abilities.