Tippy Toe Murder (Lucy Stone Mysteries, No. 2) [Paperback]

Leslie Meier (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1999

Lucy Stone of Tinker's Cove is taking time off from work to organize her three children, give birth to a fourth, and solve a series of curious mysteries plaguing her beloved town.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Preparations for a ballet school recital in Tinker's Cove, Mass., provide the setting for this second, determinedly domestic, Lucy Stone adventure, after Mail-Order Murder. Lucy, in her sixth month of pregnancy, is fully enmeshed in family life with her husband and three youngsters when her neighbor Caroline Hutton, mentor to ballet instructor Tatiana, disappears. The police say the 70-year-old former dancer has simply gone on vacation without telling anyone. Lucy and Tatiana aren't so sure, but Tatiana's recital preparations and Lucy's domestic demands preclude further investigation. Lucy lends her video camera to her friend Franny, who has been falsely accused of stealing from the hardware store where she works. The owner finds the recorder, confiscates it and sacks Franny, but when Lucy goes to the store to demand its return, she finds that the owner has been bludgeoned to death with the camera. When Franny is arrested for murder, Lucy resolves to save her. Meier links the missing neighbor and the murdered hardware store owner in this quirky, low-key puzzle, which is packed with the details of small-town, family life.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

A second visit to Maine's Tinker's Cove and homemaker-sleuth Lucy Stone (Mail Order Murder, 1991), pregnant again (her fourth) and at the center of village activities. The disappearance of retired dance teacher Caro Binney and the murder of nasty old hardware-store owner Morrill Slack have Lucy running in all directions, eventually tracking Caro, unmasking a slick lawyer in the process, and giving staunch support to wrongly accused Franny Small, Slack's longtime employee--all this sandwiched between school taxiing, Little League, ballet lessons, and helpful chats with women friends. An easygoing style, a few chuckles, but too heavy on cozy details, too lightweight in plotting and detection. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Kensington (February 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1575663929
• ISBN-13: 978-1575663920
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,070,471 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I started writing in the late '80s when I was attending graduate classes at Bridgewater State College. I wanted to become certified to teach high school English and one of the required courses was Writing and the Teaching of Writing. My professor suggested that one of the papers I wrote for that course was good enough to be published and I sent it off to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine's Department of First Stories. I got $100 for the story and I've been writing ever since. The teaching, however, didn't work out.

My books draw heavily on my experience as a mother of three and my work as a reporter for various weekly newspspers on Cape Cod. My heroine, Lucy Stone, is a reporter in the fictional town of Tinker's Cove, Maine, where she lives in an old farmhouse (quite similar to mine on Cape Cod!) with her restoration carpenter husband Bill and four children. As the series has progressed the kids have grown older, roughly paralleling my own family. We seem to have reached a point beyond which Lucy cannot age -- my editor seems to want her to remain forty-something forever -- though I have to admit I am dying to write "Menopause is Murder"!

I usually write one Lucy Stone mystery every year and "Wicked Witch Murder" came out in August, 2010. I fell in love with one character, a four-year-old boy named Nemo, and he makes a second appearance in a Christmas novella included in "Gingerbread Cookie Murder," which also features tales by Laura Levine and Joanne Fluke, due to be published in October, 2010. I've just finished "English Tea Murder" in which Lucy and her friends visit England, coming out sometime in 2011. My books are classified as cozies but a good friend insists they are really "comedies of manners" and I do enjoy expressing my view of contemporary American life.

Now that the kids are grown -- I now have two grandchildren -- my husband and I are enjoying our empty nest on Cape Cod which we share with our adorable Brittany, Sylvie.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Enjoyable, February 5, 2008

By 

J. E. Stephens "Jeanne" (Florida) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tippy Toe Murder (Lucy Stone Mysteries, No. 2) (Paperback)

This was my first Lucy Stone novel. I became interested in this series after I read a short story about the character in Candy Cane Murder. This book was very good. I enjoyed every page. It had a lot if surprises in the plot.
Lucy is a typical mom taking the kids to school and other activities. She is one of the last people to see her neighbor before she disappeared without a trace. Twists and turns in the plot take you down unexpected roads.
I think most readers would love this book. I look forward to more in this series.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Hundred Stars Are Not Enough!!!, January 28, 2007

By 

Andrea "Readaholic" (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Tippy Toe Murder (Lucy Stone Mysteries, No. 2) (Paperback)

I absolutely loved this book! I love Lucy and her cozy family. I love Tinkers Cove, Maine. I love all the characters.

Lucy is very realistic, and someone I can definitely relate to. In this book, she has 3 children and expecting the 4th. She is a good mother and wife, has a busy schedule, and crams a lot into her days. Her son goes to baseball practice; her 2 daughters go to ballet practice. She doesn't miss the kids' awards ceremonies. She is an active mother that is involved in her kids' lives. I love and adore her so much!

And in addition to the cozy family atmosphere, I absolutely loved the mystery/plot/story line, which was very clever. One resident is missing; one resident is murdered. Are the two occurances related or just a coincidence? This author is a winner.

I love Lucy and her family and Tinkers Cove so much, I am reading all of the books, in order, except for having read the Halloween one first. That was because it was Halloween, and I was looking for a Halloween book to read and I saw "Trick or Treat Murder" on the book shelf in the mystery section. I am so grateful that I bought it. This is absolutely the best mystery series I have ever read.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH LUCY STONE, July 4, 2001

By 

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

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Tippy Toe Murder (Lucy Stone Mysteries, No. 2) (Paperback)

A summer afternoon is the perfect time for enjoying the exploits of Tinker's Cove murder meddling sleuth Lucy Stone, and I recently decided to catch up with three such mysteries that have been sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read. So along with a blanket and some refreshments I took the first (The Tippy Toe Murder) to Forest Park, the legendary birthplace of the hot dog, the ice cream cone and iced tea at the 1904 Saint Louis World's Fair.

Settling under a very shady tree, I opened the book to discover that the annual ballet recital of the Tinker's Cove Academy of the Dance had been scheduled for June 18. But before that can take place Caroline Hutton, the retire ballet instructor disappears. Naturally Elizabeth and Sara, Lucy's daughters, are going to dance in the recital and Lucy is planning to videotape their rehearsal. Unfortunately, it seems that the Stone video camera is the only one in Tinker's Cove and Lucy is forever loaning it to someone. This time she has loaned it to Franny Small, and when Lucy goes to pick it up she discovers that it has been used to bash in the head of the town curmudgeon Morrill Stack.

Now with a missing woman and a murder, there's no way to keep Lucy from getting involved even though she is pregnant with her fourth child. As usual she is convinced the police have arrested the wrong person in the murder and she is determined to not only identify the murderer but also locate the missing woman both of which could have dire results for her. But when did that ever stop Lucy Stone?

Unfortunately in this book, the domestic violence/child abuse theme that runs through it gets in the way of the plot at times. Surely not every husband and wife in Tinker's Cove are abusing one another. And while Lucy's husband Bill has always been a bit of a dolt and Maine's answer to the King of Siam, for Lucy to imagine him as a wife beater is a little heavy handed. Other than that, this book is a perfect summer reading adventure in the park or wherever you want to a lazy day.