The Unraveling of Violeta Bell

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? Readers who loved C.R. Corwin's first two Morgue Mama mysteries--The Cross Kisses Back and Dig--will be happy to see that Maddy is as crafty and cantankerous as ever. If not more so!


Genre: Mystery