Customer Reviews

Crushing Crystal (Jane Stuart & Winky Mystery)

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Who says you can't mix a little merriment with your murder? Certainly not Evan Hunter, imaginative author of the Jane Stuart series (Missing Marlene, Hanging Hannah, Stabbing Stephanie, Icing Ivy, and Toasting Tina.)

As is his wont Marshall has aptly titled his latest adventure as Crystal meets her maker when she's crushed under a mountain of books and shelves. To say that she's the dearly departed would not be quite accurate because few considered her dear. Our heroine considers Crystal "the most maddening, meddling know-it-all whom Jane had ever met." However, she couldn't turn down the sister of her friend and nanny when she needed a place to stay. It's been the longest 14 days of Jane's life, but at last Crystal is removing herself to her own apartment.

Of course, Crystal can't help with the move - she fears an asthma attack. So Jane and nanny Florence do the lifting and hauling. Typical of Crystal who seems to have been gifted with a jumbo size amount of superiority and a love for unfounded gossip which she spreads with asperity and glee. No, it seems Crystal will not be missed.

But, a great deal more shocking than a wall to ceiling bookcase tumbling over is the discovery by Jane's boyfriend Detective Stanley Greenberg that the bolts holding the bookcase upright had been removed. Murder! There are several who have motives, and Jane can't resist her usual urge to investigate.

Curiosity, it seems, can not only harm cats but it might also do Jane in.

Hunter serves his usual cast of likable characters including lovable felines Winky and Twinky. Those who enjoy their mysteries ala Miss Marple will relish "Crushing Crystal."

- Gail Cooke

After solving multiple murders and other crimes while living in the small town of Shady Hills, New Jersey, Literary Agent Jane Stuart has seen and experienced quite a lot. One thing she should have noticed is the fact that the most obnoxious human beings she comes into contact with often die in one fashion or another. It has been a short three months since the events depicted in the last novel, "Toasting Tina," and once again she is dealing with another truly obnoxious human being. October is in the air and Jane is looking forward to Halloween. She is also looking forward to getting rid of an unwanted houseguest, Crystal Ryerson, sister of Jane's housekeeper, Florence. Crystal is finally getting her own place and Jane hopes to see much less of her.

Jane, for Florence's sake, has suffered Crystal's boorish behavior and meddlesome ways for the last two weeks while she looked for a new place and a new job. Crystal thrives on meddling and seems oblivious and when warned, uncaring regarding the damage she constantly causes on other people's lives. Her new job working at the town's only library has increased the list of those touched by her poisonous personality. It therefore comes as no surprise when she is killed at the library while Jane, her reading group, and numerous other possible suspects who all wished her dead were present for the fatal fall.

Of course, with a nudge from Florence and while recognizing the local police are worthless (except for her love interest, Stanley) Jane begins to ask questions of the numerous suspects. She soon discovers that the tranquil postcard image of her small town hides a dark secret that she had no idea existed. The novel becomes Jane's odyssey to set right numerous wrongs as well as finding a killer while staying alive in the process.

This sixth novel in the series follows the same formula as the earlier novels in the series. The most obnoxious, meddlesome, vile character loved by a couple and hated by many is killed in an ironic way. The local police who seem to still be amazingly inept and are unable to do what Jane does while she manages her literary agency and deals with many authors. The ongoing backdrop of the agency and her client list continues and serves to prove occasional amusement and distraction from the main storyline of this cozy as it has throughout the series. The years pass, and though the characters have aged some, remain fundamentally unchanged with almost zero character development.

For those so inclined the formula continues and works well. For the rest of us looking for the author to show character growth while moving the series to a new level, it might not work so well.

Book Facts:

Crushing Crystal (A Jane Stuart and Winky Mystery)
By Evan Marshall
Kensington Books
www.kensingtonbooks.com
2004
ISBN # 0-7582-0228-8
Hardback
247 Pages
$22.00 US
$31.00 Canada



Kevin R. Tipple © 2005

I really enjoy the Jane Stuart series. Crushing Crystal was another great one. The plot moved along well, the mystery was engaging and the characters are well thought out and developed. My only gripe with the whole series is that Jane is SO critical of everyone. She seems to really not like a lot of people. After a while, it gets to be a little much the way she complains about everyone.

Jane is happy to see her nanny's sister, Crystal Ryerson, moving out. In the two weeks she's been assistant director at the public library, she has meddled into everyone's business. She is definitely not popular. Plus she has also meddled in other people's lives due to gossip she has heard. Nothing good comes from her meddling.

Jane's reading group meeting at the library has to stop their meeting with library shelves and books come crashing down on Crystal. Jane's boyfriend, Detective Stanley Greenberg, discovers that the bolts holding the bookshelf up had been deliberately removed. Everyone at the library becomes a suspect, especially those who had gone into the back room before the shelf came crashing down.

Many of the people Crystal had meddled in their lives were at the library at that time. So not only do they have means, they have motive. Then things become more confused when a beautiful teenager who worked at the library is found dead in the woods. Next two more girls go missing. Jane is no longer positive that the meddling had anything to do with Crystal's death.

Jane is a literary agent. She has many interesting clients, including Goddess-a pop star who had written a book (with the help of a ghost writer). Goddess ends up asking Jane for a favor. After Jane says yes, she begins to regret it.

Plus Jane can't resist trying to figure out who murdered Crystal, especially since she promised her nanny she would. Can she discover the murderer's identity and keep herself out of harms way?

This book was very good. I really enjoyed it. Jane is such a likeable character. I love her interaction with her many clients. It really adds to each story.

I can't wait to read the next book in this series! I highly recommend this book.

Literary agent Jane Stuart works and lives in Shady Hills, New Jersey and is glad to be away from the crime and troubles of New York City. She has a wonderful nanny Florence for her eleven year old son Nicholas; because of her friendship with Florence she allows her nanny's sister Crystal Ryerson to stay at her home for two weeks. When they move Crystal into her new home, Jane is thrilled to get rid of the obnoxious, meddling know it all busy body.

In the short time she has been in town, Crystal complained to Children Services stating that Myrtle Lovesy's daughter, a former drug addict, is not fit to raise her child. She also gets a teacher fired for stealing computers that he categorically denies. Crystal, an assistant director at the public library, arranges a reading group. At the very first meeting the teacher and Mrs. Lovesy are there. When Crystal climbs a ladder to get a book from the top shelf of the bookstore, it falls on her killing her instantly. Florence ask Jane, who has solved five homicides, to find her sister's killer; she agrees to help her friend not knowing that she is putting her life on the line.

CRUSHING CRYSTAL is a fantastic cozy and a delightful amateur sleuth tale all rolled up into one terrific package. The protagonist is intelligent and loyal willing to go the extra mile to help her friend. Evan Marshall has written his best mystery to date because there is a subplot involving a missing beautiful high school girl that seamlessly returns to the main story line. This delightfully charming mystery is definitely deserving of an award nomination.

Harriet Klausner

This is the last one in a series of endearing mystery books by Evan Marshall. I can wholeheartedly recommend these books. They are interesting, suspenseful, whimsical with an element of surprise and human touch. Once you read the first one, you cannot wait to read the next adventure of Winky's family. Very entertaining.
Brigitte

It's been said that there are people who are actually improved by death, and Crystal Ryerson may be one of them. She had a positive genius for sticking her nose into other people's business and ruffling their feathers severely. Still, the last thing anyone expected (except, obviously, her killer) was for a bookcase to fall on her in the Shady Hills Library. And because her sister Florence is Jane Stuart's housekeeper, Jane is inevitably drawn into the investigation. Who loosened the bolts in that bookcase--the woman whose daughter Crystal had reported to Family Services and who feared her small granddaughter would end up in a foster home, the middle-school teacher whom Crystal got fired on suspicion of stealing computers, or someone else? Of course, Jane's boyfriend, Detective Stanley Greenberg, isn't too happy about her tendency to play unlicensed PI. And meanwhile Jane has to cope with her rock-star client Goddess, who's volunteered herself to do secretarial work in Jane's literary agency as a research project for her next film role, deal with a roster of difficult clients, and figure out why her cat Winky (and Winky's daughter Twinky) have taken to scratching the sofa. Then a high-school girl working as an aide at the library is discovered dead. Is there a connection to Crystal's murder? And what about the two other teens who've mysteriously vanished from their accustomed haunts?

This is the sixth in Evan Marshall's Jane Stuart & Winky cozy mystery series, set in the high-end suburban community of Shady Hills, NJ. Light and complex as all cozies should be, and flavored with throwaway about the literary-agent game (Marshall himself is an agent), it may be mildly disappointing to cat-lovers (who will find that Winky doesn't play as large a part in the resolution of the mystery as her inclusion in the series title suggests), but is suitably convoluted and ends with a revelation I never suspected. A very satisfying mystery.

It is always a guilty pleasure when the person done in in the Who-Done-It is a pain in the posterior and deserves her fate. This way, the reader gets a two-fer -- murder most satisfying plus the apprehension of the perp! Well done and well written.

Evan Marshall does it again! He's written another fun cozy that had me fooled to the very end. Good job!

The cats are not in very much of the story. I would call this a mystery, but not a "cat sluth" mystery. There is alot more about the cat in the Joanne Fluke "food mystery" books.