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To Thine Own Self Be True: A Stella Crown Mystery

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Dairy farmer Stella Crown is mourning the loss of her good friend and farm hand Howie by having his name tattooed as an ID bracelet on her wrist. It's the end of a long day, and when Wolf stops tattooing to follow his wife Mandy into the back room, Stella nods off for a little while. She's mildly irritated when she can't find Wolf or Stella, but figures something came up and she'll get the rest of the tattoo next time.

Unfortunately, there may not be a next time. Mandy is dead of hypothermia after being hit on the head and left in a snow bank; Wolf is the obvious suspect for the police, because he can't be found. Stella and her friends know better, but have a hard time convincing the police. Stella gets help on the case when a man from her past, Nick, shows up on her doorstep. Together they start nosing around the tattoo community, finding controversy and hidden agendas all around them.

TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE is the third in the Stella Crown series. The plot takes Stella out of her comfort zone, both personally and within the surprisingly diverse tattoo sub-culture. As in the previous books, Clemens seems to take pleasure in rearranging Stella's world from the ground up. It's certainly a pleasure, as a reader, to watch Stella cope with all the changes, to see her grow as a character. It's also a challenge trying to figure out where Clemens can go from here, a challenge she's surely capable of meeting.

Deciding to treat herself for the holidays, Pennsylvania dairy farmer Stella Crown drives to Wolf Ink to have artist Wolf etch her a new tattoo. While Wolf lectures Stella to stop moving, his wife Mandy tells her droll stories that keep her laughing. Mandy leaves for the back room, but soon asks Wolf to join her for a minute; Stella dozes for twenty minutes. When she awakens from her catnap, she finds herself alone with only half the tattoo finished and the weather turning ugly. She goes home though the ride takes over twice as long as normal due to the falling snow.

Soon afterward Lansdale Police Detective Shisler and Officer Beane arrive to question Stella about when she last seen Scott (Wolf) and Mandy Moore. After answering specific questions from the two cops, Shisler informs Stella that just outside the tattoo parlor Mrs. Moore froze to death after being hit on the head; Wolf vanished. Feeling guilty because Mandy may have died while she left in a tizzy, Stella investigates an angry client and illegal tattooists working the under sixteen trade in back allies while never changing needles.

The third Stella Crown amateur sleuth mystery is an entreating and educational tale that will have the audience appreciating the heroine's efforts as well as reconsidering the stereotyping of bikers and tattoo artists. The story line is driven by the Harley riding tattooed Stella who feels a sense of responsibly for Mandy's death though she knows she did not cause the tragedy. Her inquiry enables the audience to understand the damage caused by the back alley criminal tattooists (sounds like abortion before Roe vs. Wade) and the holier than thou legislators who condemn an entire industry due to these few miscreants.

Harriet Klausner

To Thine Own Self Be True is the third book in this series. Although this one gives away a lot less of the first and second novels, than the second did of the first, you really do need to read these books in order so when you do go back and read the prior novels, you get to read all the surprises when they happen. Although you could read this as a standalone and understand everything, you're appreciation for Stella, Lucy, Tess and Lenny will be a lot more having read the other novels first. Till the Cows Come Home is the initial Stella Crown dairy farm set adventure, Three Can Keep a Secret is the second.

In this adventure, Stella still mourning the loss of her father figure farm hand, decides to get a permanent homage to the man tattooed on her wrist. However there's a crash out back and her tattoo artist is asked to by his wife Mandy to come to the backroom, midway through the procedure. Stella's pretty tired from all her hard work on her farm, the chair is comfy and she nods off. When she awakens embarrassed that she fell asleep she wonders where everybody is. Looking at her wrist she knows Wolf, the tattoo artist did not return and finish off the tattoo. Maybe he's offended she fell asleep, or simply didn't want to wake her, so she decides to walk around his establishment to find him. The back door is wide open letting in the cold snow chilled air, there's a tray of stuff on the floor that probably made the loud crashing sound. Wolf and his wife's apartment is above the parlour, Stella knows she needs to get back to the farm for milking time so decides to interrupt whatever the couple is doing with a phone call. They don't answer the call and since it's vital she's back at the farm she decides to just leave a post it note with her phone number on it. However it's not Wolf that contacts her. Instead a patrol car from the neighbouring town which the tattoo parlour was in pulls up at the farm, interrupting a reunion between herself and a former employee. The body of Mandy has been discovered between a dumpster and the very back door Stella looked out of. She would have still been alive if Stella looked in the direction of the dumpster when she leaned out the door. Wolf seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. Racked with guilt, Stella is determined to discover what happened, she doesn't believe Wolf would have harmed Mandy and is determined to save him if he is still alive. She knows bikers and others in the tattoo world aren't always forthcoming or co-operative when talking with the police, so she's determined to ask the questions and relay the info she finds out to a homicide detective.

To Thine Own Self Be True although not quite as good as the initial Till the Cows Come Home, is a lot more interesting than the first sequel was. Judy Clemens other series (The Reaper Series) is also very good, like this series you need to start at the beginning with Embrace the Grim Reaper.

First Line: "So I said to him, 'You know what could happen if I pierced you there?' The stooge went white so fast I thought he was gonna do a face plant right there on the linoleum!"

Stella Crown lives in a Mennonite area of Pennsylvania and is a hard-working dairy farmer. She is also tattooed and rides a Harley Davidson motorcycle. She's used to be looked at with raised eyebrows; she's used to being treated as though she's from another planet.

Shortly before Christmas, Stella decides to treat herself to a new tattoo and stops in at Wolf Ink to have it done. Halfway through the tattoo, Wolf's wife Mandy calls him to the back of the shop, and while he's gone the hard-working Stella falls asleep in the chair. When she wakes up, Wolf and Mandy have disappeared. Although she's not happy about the interrupted tattoo, she's also very uneasy about the disappearance of her friends. When Stella discovers that Mandy has been found frozen to death behind a dumpster outside Wolf Ink and that Wolf has vanished, her overwhelming sense of guilt has her helping the police with their investigation. The investigation soon starts looking into fringe tattooists (who ink underage kids and "forget" to change needles) and a legislator who wants to close down the entire industry. Between milking times and blizzards, will Stella have a chance to find out who killed Mandy and what happened to Wolf?

I enjoy this series because Clemens has such a marvelous character in Stella and such an unusual setting. You may have sleuths who are tattooed and ride motorcycles, but chances are that they don't have to keep a dairy farm running. Many times amateur sleuths who are supposedly gainfully employed have time to gallivant over hill and dale day after day in pursuit of the bad guys. Stella doesn't. When those cows need milking, she has to be there. When the truck comes to pick up the milk, it has to be taken care of. This means that the mystery has to take a backseat from time to time for the daily work on a dairy farm. I like that realism.

I also like the fact that Clemens lets me take a peek into worlds that are very unfamiliar to me: the worlds of the Mennonites, of dairy farmers, of tattoo parlors, and of motorcycles. With a down-to-earth character like Stella showing me the way, it's a pleasure to ride along while she solves mysteries.

Sometimes when you've enjoyed an author's first book, you womder if they can keep the series fresh. One author who can is Judy Clemens. In the third of her Stella Crown series, we find the tattooed Harley riding, dairy farmer, getting a new tattoo. Nodding off in the chair, she awakes to find, half a tattoo, the artist missing, and his wife dead. Not a good start to ones day.
Blaming herself, she is determined to find out what has happened. The deeper she looks, the more motives she uncovers among an array of characters.

Judy Clemens has been nominated for an Agatha and Anthony award. Not a cute cozy, not hardboiled either. The Stella Crown series is somewhere in between, and will appealed to all types of mystery readers.

#3 Stella Crown mystery. It's nearly Christmas in rural Pennsylvania, and Stella is half-heartedly making holiday preparations on the farm. The last thing that anyone wants to have to deal with is a murder and a disappearance--although focusing on someone else's problems is ever a way to avoid confronting your own. That's what happens when Wolf, the tattoo artist who is working on Stella's new tat, disappears mid-tattoo. Wolf's wife Mandy calls him into the back room, and Stella, tired and feeling warm and comfortable, falls asleep for about twenty minutes. When she awakens, Wolf and Mandy are both gone, with Mandy's body turning up later in the dumpster.

Everyone who knows Wolf knows he would never have done his wife harm, so Stella sets out to help the police by inquiring among the biker and body art crowd who would likely clam up under questioning by the cops. Mandy and Wolf were both political-minded and had been active in a group putting forth the rights of tattoo artists, so the police and Stella wonder whether there is some connection to Mandy's death and Wolf's disappearance or if it was some personal motivation.

Meanwhile, Stella's former hottie Nick shows up, and ends up snowed in at the farm for the holiday with Stella and her farmhand Lucy, her daughter Tess and Lucy's boyfriend Lenny. Still unsure of her feelings, things don't go so well, especially at first.

Once again in this book, Stella seems constantly on edge with raw emotions and she's prickly as a porcupine. Her family and friends seem to be well-endowed with forbearance, as I think I would have just drifted away from someone who is such a crab all the time! But they stick with her through thick and thin, and so I guess I will, too, if only to discover if she finally finds some happiness. I do like Stella, I wish she'd just lighten up a bit sometimes. There is promise, judging from the ending.

Stella Crown is the kind of heroine you like to root for--she is tough, hard-working and righteous. Even though the story begins with her unfinished tattoo and the missing tattoo artist who left her sitting in the chair(would that dentists just left you to fall asleep in the chair!), the story churns on in a folksy way. Stella has to contend with a misunderstood suitor, cows to be milked and Christmas all the time she is tracking down the kidnapped tattooer. Not only must Stella feel guilty for not saving the tattoo artist's wife who was left to die out back in the snow, but she must also share the unhappiness of the other people involved. It has that feel of "when bad things happen to good people." Stella struggles along, and I got the sense that she is on the road to better self-awareness. But I still don't understand why such a sensible gal needs a tattoo! That was the real mystery for me.

Stella - she's the real deal! Love her dialogue! Love her attitude! Judy Clemens has developed an authentic character who just keeps getting better and better as the series develops. Waiting to read her next adventure!