Amateur sleuth and crossword impresario Cora Felton is asked to solve a puzzle, only to find that it’s been stolen—and a murder weapon has been left in its place.
When the obnoxious sixteen-year-old Peggy Dawson asks Cora Felton to solve a puzzle for her, Cora is delighted to find that the puzzle has been stolen. She is less delighted, however, when a blood-stained knife is found in its place.
Soon a body is discovered in the middle of Main Street, and Cora has a murder investigation on her hands. It does not help matters when she hears that her least favorite ex-husband, Melvin, is in town pulling a real estate scam, particularly when she discovers that Melvin may have purchased the knife. Now it’s up to the Puzzle Lady to figure out what really happened, in The Purloined Puzzle, from the New York Times' bestselling author Parnell Hall.
Release date:
March 13, 2018
Publisher:
St. Martin's Publishing Group
Print pages:
304
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
Cora Felton winced. She regarded the eager girl looking up at her much in the way a person might regard a particularly irritating gnat. She took a breath and forced a rather frosty smile. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do. I have a crossword puzzle for you.”
“You may have a crossword puzzle, but it’s not for me. It’s for you. And you should work at it until you solve it.”
“But you’re the Puzzle Lady.”
Cora Felton grimaced. She was the Puzzle Lady, much to her chagrin. She had a nationally syndicated crossword puzzle column and a series of TV ads hawking a breakfast cereal to schoolchildren. In both cases she was a total fraud. She didn’t eat the cereal and she couldn’t do the puzzles. Her niece Sherry was the brains of the outfit. Sherry created the puzzles and wrote the column and sent it off to syndication. All that Cora contributed was the smiling, grandmotherly face that graced the column.
Because of this, Cora was constantly being ambushed by people who wanted her to talk about crossword puzzles or, worse, solve crossword puzzles, which she had about as much chance of doing as she had of swimming the English Channel.
Today she had just stopped into Cushman’s Bake Shop for a cranberry scone, of which she was particularly fond. Mrs. Cushman couldn’t bake a lick and trucked in all her pastries from the Silver Moon Bakery in Manhattan, so her wares were top-notch and demand was high. Cora was waiting at the counter, and the last thing she needed was to be distracted by a fan and lose her place in line.
Over the years Cora had become quite adept at sidestepping annoying people who wanted to pester her about puzzles. But this was a young girl. Of that she was quite certain. Cora had reached the age where girls she thought were teenagers often turned out to be twenty-eight or even thirty-five, but she would have made book on the fact the bright-eyed, fresh-faced young thing in the ponytail and retainer was under twenty. This was definitely a schoolgirl, and disappointing children was a serious matter. There was even a clause in her contract with Granville Grains Cereal that triggered a termination-without-compensation option in that instance.
“And who might you be, young lady?”
“Peggy Dawson.” From the girl’s somewhat pained inflection, Cora had probably met her before, though she had no recollection of it.
“Well, listen, Peggy Dawson. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Give me your puzzle and I’ll take it home, and when I get some time I’ll look at it. I’m not promising anything, you understand. I get so many crosswords. I can’t solve them all.”
Cora had been particularly pleased when she came up with that excuse. It was absolutely true. She couldn’t solve them all. In point of fact, she couldn’t solve a single one, but that minor detail got lost in the shuffle.
Peggy Dawson’s face left no doubt as to her youth. “But I need it solved,” she said. She looked like she might stamp her foot. “Or I won’t know what it says.”
“That is absolutely true,” Cora said. “If you don’t solve it, you won’t know what it says.”
Cora had reached the front of the line.
Mrs. Cushman smiled at her. “And what will it be today?”
“A cranberry scone. Please tell me you’re not out of them.”
“You’re just in time. I’ve got two left.”
Cora was tempted to buy both of them and save one for later, but that wouldn’t help her fit into her new dress, which she had bought a trifle on the small side as an incentive to lose weight. Her closet was full of clothes she had bought on that basis.
“I’ll have a latte and a scone,” Cora said.
“One latte,” Mrs. Cushman called to her helper. She rang Cora up, gave her the scone, and made change.
Cora moved down the counter and picked up her latte. She took a greedy bite of the scone and turned away from the counter to find the girl still standing there. Somehow Cora had expected her to be gone.
“That won’t do at all.” Peggy picked up the conversation as if there had been no interruption. “I’m really worried about this puzzle, and I’ve got to know what it means. Won’t you help me? It’s a mystery. I thought you liked mysteries.”
“How is it a mystery?”
“I don’t know who sent it, and I don’t know why. Look, my truck’s right outside. Let’s take a run out to my house and I can give you the puzzle and we can clean all this up.”
Cora was astonished at how the girl had steamrolled over all her objections by simply ignoring them. It seemed like the only way to get rid of the girl would be to take out a gun and shoot her. It occurred to her Granville Grains probably had a clause in her contract about that.
Harvey Beerbaum banged in the door. He waved at Cora and took his place in line. Her answering wave was less enthusiastic. The pudgy gentleman in the tweedy suit and tie was a terrible bore, constantly pestering her with his attentions. Cora was never sure whether he was hitting on her or if he was actually gay.
Worse, the man was a genuine cruciverbalist, who constructed puzzles for The New York Times and could never understand why she was not just dying to talk about them.
If the truth be known, Harvey Beerbaum was even more annoying than the maddening girl.
Cora’s eyes widened.
She glanced from one to the other and practically purred.
Cora put on her most coy and coquettish face, batted her eyes, and managed a singsong lilt to her voice.
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
