Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, has written a review of The Unraveling of Violeta Bell by C. R. Corwin. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.
The Unraveling of Violeta Bell by C. R. Corwin
A Maddy Sprowls Mystery
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59058-501-1 (1590585011)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-501-6 (9781590585016)
Publication Date: April 2008
List Price: $24.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): Newspaper librarian Maddy Sprowls never gives story ideas to the editors at The Hannawa Herald-Union. She prefers to stay in the “morgue” and do her job, and hopes the editors stay in the newsroom and do theirs. Then one Saturday she sees four elderly women get out of a taxicab at a garage sale. Those women must hire that cabby every week, she figures, to drive them from garage sale to garage sale while they search for treasure. And wouldn’t that make a great feature story for the paper? Monday morning she runs straight to the newsroom with her idea. Shortly after the story runs, one of the four women is murdered - retired antique dealer Violeta Bell.
Maddy wants no part of the investigation. But before she knows it she’s on another of her infamous snoopathons. And, good gravy, enjoying every minute of it. Was Violeta Bell murdered by one of the other garage sale ladies? Former striptease artist Kay Hausenfelter perhaps? Or real estate agent Gloria McPhee? Or eccentric philanthropist Ariel Wilburger-Gowdy? Or was it Eddie French, the scruffy cabby with a police record as long as his arm? And what about Violeta’s claim that she was the rightful queen of Romania? Any truth to that?
Review: C. R. Corwin's third mystery featuring Maddy "the Morgue Mama" Sprowls, The Unraveling of Violeta Bell, finds the newspaper librarian investigating the murder of an antiques dealer.
Every Saturday at 8 AM sharp, a cab picks up a group of four elderly women who takes them on the rounds of garage sales in the area. These "Queens of Never Dull" pose an interesting human interest story, or so believes Maddy, who suggests such a story to her editors. The women eagerly agree to an interview, and what a diverse group they are. One is a wealthy widow who was once a strip-tease artist, another is a real estate agent, a third is married to the owner of a pest control company, and the last, Violeta Bell, the self-appointed leader of the group, is the retired owner of Bellflower Antiques. But Violeta actually believes she is a Queen, a member of the royal family of Romania. Just days after a story of the group is published, Violeta is found murdered, shot three times at close range. What threat did this old woman pose that someone found it necessary to kill her?
The Unraveling of Violeta Bell is an engaging, delightful mystery. Maddy, at the tender age of 69, still thinks she is, and acts like, a teenager: stubborn, opinionated, and sassy. When the ladies' cab driver is arrested, Maddy's editor-in-chief asks her to investigate. He has a circuitous family relationship with the driver but believes him to be innocent. Maddy quickly learns that Violeta led something of an active double life, the Queens of Never Dull were certainly not dull themselves, and Violeta's antiques were far more modern than she claimed. Though suspects abound, Maddy finally narrows down the list and creates a shrewd trap to identify the culprit.
Witty, clever, humorous, and genuinely entertaining, The Unraveling of Violeta Bell is a real treat for mystery lovers. It is highly recommended.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of The Unraveling of Violeta Bell and to Poisoned Pen Press for providing an ARC of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
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