Genre: Mystery
Hardcover; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781496730572
Kensington Publishing
224 Pages
$20.00; $9.99 Amazon
August 25, 2020
⭐⭐⭐⭐
With just a few days left before Halloween, everyone at Howard Academy is anticipating the guaranteed sugar high they'll experience from gorging on Harriet Bloom's famous marshmallow puffs. The private school's annual costume party revolves around the headmaster's assistant and her seemingly supernatural batches of gooey goodies. So, it's a shock when Harriet's elderly neighbor is suddenly found dead with the beloved dessert in his hand. In a snap, police start questioning whether Harriet modified her top-secret recipe to include a hefty dose of lethal poison...
Melanie knows her tenured colleague would never intentionally serve cyanide-laced puffs to a defenseless old man. But as explosive neighborhood gossip reveals a potential culprit, it also brings her closer to sealing her own doom. Because on an evening ruled by masked revelers, bizarre getups, and hidden identities, Halloween might just be the perfect opportunity for a cold-hearted killer to get away with murder once again -- this time sending a nosy, unsuspecting sleuth to an early grave!
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Melanie Travis is a teacher at Howard Academy, an upscale school that was once the Joshua Howard mansion and is now home to the Connecticut private school. Since she is the special needs teacher, she also brings her ex-champion show dog and standard poodle, Faith, along with her.
After an unexpected trip to the attic, Melanie is heading back to her office when she spots the director's assistant, Harriet, sitting at her desk, clenched fingers and staring straight ahead. Harriet tells her that her neighbor Ralph Penders is dead, and the police think she killed him. It seems Harriet makes marshmallow puffs every Halloween not only for the academy's annual Halloween party, but for neighbors as well, and when Ralph was found, he had one very tainted puff in his hand. Now she's afraid she'll be arrested for a murder she didn't commit.
So she asks for Melanie's help in finding out who killed the old man, and while Melanie doesn't want to get involved, she knows she'll need to do so. After informing the director -- who will be sorely upset by the news -- Melanie sets about retrieving the puffs that Harriet gave to neighbors and trying to find a killer. But it's not going to be easy, since none of the suspects know who she is, and the ones that do talk to her aren't giving her much. It's when Melanie gets a little too close that the killer becomes nervous -- and decides the best thing to do is get her out of the way -- permanently...
While I must admit that I haven't read all of the Melanie Travis books, I've lately been doing so, and liked them. This is a mystery set at Halloween, and while there isn't a lot of detail regarding the holiday, there's enough sprinkled throughout to remind you.
Melanie vows to help Harriet any way she can, and if that means dealing with people she doesn't know, then so be it. The people she questions are a motley bunch, and while I'm not sure I'd want to spend time with any of them, it's definitely an interesting group. The most interesting of all is Harriet's sister Bernadette, who's merely two years younger than Harriet but doesn't want to get old. So she's found herself a much-younger boyfriend, and unfortunately, Melanie isn't sure what to make of it, especially since they act like teenagers around each other. But Melanie is discovering more about Harriet that she never knew, and it surprises her; realizing that she should have made better friends with Harriet years ago.
Woven in between this is, of course, subplots; one of which is the fact that her younger son Kevin still hasn't made up his mind on what he wants to be for Halloween; and there's also a young boy named Luke who is one of her students and has taken a real shine to Faith. Both of these subplots are central to the story in one way or another, giving us a relief from finding a killer.
While I knew the murderer the moment the person stepped onto the page (I read a lot of mysteries); it still was quite a bit of fun reading the story and seeing if I was right (I was). Finding the motive seemed rather sad and cold, and gave me no sympathy toward the killer at all. In the end, this is a quick read that can be read in one evening, and definitely worth the time. Recommended.
More on Laurien Berenson's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/laurien-berenson/
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