Customer Reviews

Dig (Morgue Mama Mysteries (Paperback))

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3 star:		(2)
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I'm a big fan of this series which started with Morgue Mama followed by Dig. For a light hearted series it's really well written and is filled with enjoyable, original characters with interesting histories. I recommend checking out the first two in the series and very much hope there will be a third.

Sometimes these rainy day mystery novels are so contrived, I can't handle them. But this one works, despite the fact that it follows genre formulas: an eccentric protagonist, a slew of silly suspects, a convoluted murder plot full of red herrings, a surprise ending. There is enough wit, suspense, and novelty in "Dig" to keep you turning the pages. I'm looking forward to more.

Corwin's latest, "Dig," is a riveting read, with well-developed, true-to-life characters, swift pacing and an arresting plot. My favorite character is police Detective Scotty Grant, who tries again to frighten our heroine, Maddy Sprowls, off the case. In this installment, Maddy feels compelled to look into the murder of one of her old and dear friends, making it a heartwrenching puzzle. Making this probe even more daunting is the fact that the list of possible suspects include many of her other old friends. Maddy operates in this yarn pretty much alone, making the investigation scarier in many respects. Corwin's prose is delightful, and the observations and descriptions are often scathing and hilarious. I comment "Dig" to everyone who loves a good mystery!

Sixty-nine years old Maddy Sprowls, the head librarian for the past three plus decades at the Hannawa Herald-Union is stunned with today's obituary column. A friend from her days at Hemphill College, Gordon "Sweet Gordon" Sweet died. She learns from another section of the paper that someone shot Gordon in the back of the head.

Maddy talks to the crime reporter, who explains a homicide occurred but no weapon was found near the Wooster Pile Landfill where the archeologist Professor was sifting through the garbage. Though warned off by Detective Scotty Grant, Maddy cannot let it go. She sees a connection to her bohemian days when she and the deceased garbologist were members of the Meriwether Square Baked Beans Extravaganza Society and the death over five decades ago of another student.

Maddy applies her years of digging out facts as "Madame Morgue" to the investigation into the death of her college friend over the objections of the lead homicide detective and her paper's crime reporter; each fears for her life. The feisty Maddy makes for a fine time for amateur sleuth fans though her background digging for information for reporters (albeit reluctantly at best and not without making her customers pay with a pound of flesh) makes her more experienced in following leads and threads than most rookie detectives. Fans will want to join Maddy on her DIG for the truth, which is closer to her than she realizes.

Harriet Klausner

C.R. Corwin's DIG: A MORGUE MAMA MYSTERY returns another 'Morgue Mama' story to print, this telling of the newspaper archivist's discovery that her old college friend is murdered at an abandoned landfill where a dig is in progress. Suddenly the 68-year-old librarian is involved in yet another murder investigation - which turns out to be two murders and involves a trip down memory lane to resolve.

Maddy Sprowls gets to The Hannawa Herald-Union on the stroke of nine. She makes her first mug of Darjeeling tea and settles down at her desk to read the obituaries. The obits are the best part of her day, she admits. But not today. First she reads that her old college friend Gordon Sweet is dead. Then she learns he was murdered--at the abandoned landfill where the eccentric archaeology professor was conducting his latest dig.

And just like that, the cranky 68 year old newspaper librarian finds herself investigating another murder. No, two murders! Dordon's death just might be linked to the grisly bludgeoning of state wrestling champ Davif Delarosa fifty years earlier.

And so begins a harrowing and hilarious trek back to Maddy's old beatnik days, when she was a member of the Meriwether Square Baked Bean Existentialist Society. Legendary beat writer Jack Kerouac still casts a long shadow over the group. And there's a coffee house full of quirky suspects to consider: Poet Chick Glass, saxophonist Shaka Bop, free thinkinng Effie Fredmansky, snooty Gwen Moffitt Stumpfm and toxic waste dumper Kenneth Kingzette, just to name a few.

There's a reason why reporters called Maddy "Morgue Mama" behind her back. And why cops and criminals alike get the jitters when she pulls up in her old Dodge Shadow. She is tough, tenacious, and as readers of C.R. Corwin's Morgue Mama: The Cross Kisses Back discovered, tricky as the dickens.

thank you c.r. corwin for validating my claim that older women have a great deal to offer.this little dumpy librarian is one heck of avaluable.she does not color her hair or use botox. what she does do,so effectively,is solve crimes. i love her!

This is the second in the Morgue Mama series. May there be many more. As I said about the first, it manages to combine good old-fashioned first person narration with brilliantly original wit and insights.
It centers around two murders, half a century apart, a cocoa can that may have belonged to Jack Kerouac, an archeological dig at a landfill, and 68 year Maddy Sprowls' work as a librarian at the local newspaper in a rustbelt Ohio town. There's a lot of information about a lot of things. I have to confess that I have lived for years just ten miles from the Haverstraw Brick Museum and never been there, I had no idea there was such a lot to brick collecting until I read this and then visited some of the brick aficionado WEB sites.
One unresolved mystery was about the cover photograph. I'm sure it is an iconic image I should be familiar with but I wasn't. My paperback contains no cover design credits or information.

I didn't enjoy this one as much as the first Morgue Mama book. Perhaps some of the newness of the character wore off. For some reason, too, I grew irritated at the author's repetition at one of Morgue Mama's traits. It seems like she does an awful lot of "pawing the air" in front of her.
One of its strongest elements is its insights into the behind the scenes workings at a newspaper, especially in this day and age. The author is dead on with his descriptions.
All in all, a light and entertaining enough read.