Dead Crazy (Jenny Cain Mysteries, No. 5) [Mass Market Paperback]

Nancy Pickard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1989

Award-winning author Nancy Pickard has been receiving high acclaim for her mystery series starring sleuth Jenny Cain. This time Cain finds herself following the trail of a possible paranoid schizophrenic slasher--only to uncover clues that put her squarely in the sights of a cold-blooded murderer! "An outstanding mystery series that just keeps getting better".--ALA Booklist.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Last seen in Marriage Is Murder , Jenny Cain, goodhearted but admirably disciplined director of the Port Frederick, Mass., Civic Foundation, skillfully utilizes intuition and steely nerves to solve two brutal slayings. When MaryDell Paine, wealthy and pompous do-gooder, appeals to the foundation for funds to renovate an old church basement as a recreation hall for former mental patients, it quickly becomes apparent that her altruism is tempered with urgent need. Her brother Kitt, a paranoid schizophrenic, has become a drain on the family's patience and finances. Jenny finds the site to be ideal, and begins to canvass the area, discovering a number of neighbors whose bizarre reactions to the renovation both provoke and intrigue her. When one of the neighbors is found slashed to death in the basement, suspicion falls on Kitt, and when another homeowner is discovered murdered in her living room, the search for Kitt intensifies, bringing Jenny into close cooperation with the able local police. A well-controlled sense of the absurd runs beneath the surface of the narrative, and Pickard is also deft at sharply rendering her characters' strong personalities. The plot eventually widens to include extortion and blackmail, all adeptly ferreted out by Jenny, as independent and imaginative as ever in her fifth mystery.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

When rich matriarch MaryDell Paine beseeches Port Frederick Civic Foundation director Jenny Cain to fund a recreation hall for released mental patients (such as MaryDell's brother), Jenny and her fired but not-yet-gone assistant Derek view the proposed site and canvass the neighbors for their opinion of it. When Jenny leaves, Derek innocently pockets the key, then uses it to let a pair of street people in for the night to escape the cold. In the morning, foul-mouthed neighbor Rodney Gardner lies butchered on the floor; there's a bizarre message on the blackboard from someone signed MOB; and Derek is missing (he later turns up sharing an expensive condo with Rodney's Lolita-ish wife Sammie). Anxious to solve the murder before the lecherous owner sells the building to the competitive bidder, Jenny consults her psychiatrist chum Marsha; then pries again among the neighbors, including anti-rec-hall Perry Yates, who had an affair with Sammie while he was married to free-wheeling artist Marianne. Soon another of the neighbors, who collects pig replicas and spouts locked-ward lingo, is found hanged; and MaryDell Paine's brother is fleeing to the next county in a mink coat and a Cadillac. Whodunit and why? A mental patient? A concerned neighbor? A lover? A greedy realtor? Jenny finds out in face-to-face confrontation, which ends in a hail of detective bullets. Peppy Jenny is a wonderfully unsaccharine heroine, whose sardonic asides are delightful, but the other characters could have used more fleshing out. Still, a sprightly mix of social issues and amateur detection-and a guaranteed pleasure for fans of the cozy mystery. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 277 pages
• Publisher: Pocket; First Edition edition (June 1, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671643371
• ISBN-13: 978-0671643379
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,161,879 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but a little chaotic, August 12, 2000

By 

frumiousb "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Dead Crazy (Jenny Cain Mysteries, No. 5) (Mass Market Paperback)

While the writing style was good and the plot was interesting, it was easy to imagine that this book had been written just a little too quickly. I was suprised by some of the plot holes and obviousnesses given the general high quality of the writing.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A decent little mystery, August 21, 2004

By 

DWD "DWD's Reviews" (Indianapolis, IN) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Dead Crazy (Jenny Cain Mysteries, No. 5) (Mass Market Paperback)

This novel is set in small-town New England and features Jenny Cain, the woman in charge of the areas philanthropical foundation (very much like Indianapolis' Lilly Foundation) that makes investments and gives grants for the public good. The foundation is asked to buy a building so that it can be converted into a recreation/meeting hall for the mentally ill of the community - a place where they can get out of the cold and still be welcome. But, things quickly get complicated when people start dying in and around the building and a mentally ill man is the main suspect.

The characters are believable, the book is well-paced and the killer is a surprise (I thought I had it figured out for about half the book, but ... I was wrong).

4.0 out of 5 stars a social services-oriented mystery, May 3, 2008

By 

anonymous - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dead Crazy (Jenny Cain Mysteries, No. 5) (Mass Market Paperback)

What I like about Nancy Pickard is that she writes more than a mystery. She does a nice job here with the social services world. It is the balance between that world and the "crime fiction" that I was expecting that drew me in. She does a great job with settings -- most commonly in the few Jenny Cain books I've read, with the cold, dreary New England winters. She handles issues of mental illness in an adept and realistic fashion, without getting too heavy or losing the pacing that a mystery should hvae.