A Sophie Kimball Mystery Book 14
Author: J.C. Eaton
Genre: Mystery
Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781966322016
Beyond The Page Publishing
216 Pages
$14.99; $5.99 Amazon
February 25, 2025
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It's a blistering hot summer in Sun City West, and members of the retirement community are happy to escape into the air-conditioned bliss of the library to work on a mammoth forty-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. But things begin heating up inside, too, when members clash with the domineering head of the puzzle committee over which puzzle to solve -- until someone settles the matter by killing her. Now it's up to Sophie "Phee" Kimball to put all the pieces of the murder plot together and catch the culprit responsible.
Any number of the jigsaw afficionados could have wanted the victim out of the picture for her personality alone, but Phee suspects there was a more sinister motive behind the murder. Then the chosen puzzle and the library itself are struck by one instance of sabotage after another, and Phee's convinced that someone is sending a menacing message. But just as she unearths a telling clue and slots it into place, she finds herself in a race against time to finish the puzzle and solve the case -- before the killer goes to pieces and finishes her off too...
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Sophie "Phee" Kimball-Gregory is married to Marshall Gregory, who works for Nate's private investigator agency as one of the investigators. Phee is their accountant, and unfortunately, her mother Harriet thinks that there are always murderers around the corner. Also unfortunately, she's usually right, which puts Phee in the position of having to give her 'tasks' to do to keep her out of the murder investigation.
This time out, the Sun City West retirees are taking part in constructing a giant forty-thousand-piece puzzle, and the finished product is going to be in the Senior Living magazine. But not everyone is happy about this: the puzzle that they're constructing is a last-minute replacement, since the three original choices no one wanted to do (seriously? A snowstorm?) This is an innocuous picture of an Arizona street...or is it?
It doesn't help that the body of one of the committee members is discovered in the library and Nate's firm is called in by the police to help investigate. Or that Nate is contacted by a woman who claims another woman killed her husband twenty years ago and she knows who it is, but not where she is now. Phee's task is to keep her mother away from both investigations, if possible...and it isn't...
Then when 'accidents' keep occurring at the library around the puzzle, and threatening messages are left, even Phee knows that something is off. Someone does not want that puzzle completed, but why? Harriet is determined that she and her friends finish it, because she's not giving up the chance to be in Senior Living. At least she's not able to bring her Chiweenie Streetman to the library. That's the best news Phee's heard in a long time. The 'little prince' causes chaos, and Phee has enough of that right now.
But when a major clue is revealed on air, and something else is discovered, not only does it upend everything, it puts Phee right in the middle of it. And not only does she not want to be, she wants to be as far away as possible...which isn't going to happen...
This is the fourteenth book in the series, and I have read them all. I have also loved them all. The author(s) have done a wonderful job in the character department. Harriet and her friends are a riot, especially Herb and her loony Aunt Ina. Poor Phee is the voice of reason -- that none of them listen to anyway.
Things get going right from the beginning, and it seems there are two murders to solve, both of which get Phee drawn into. In this book, I figured out most of it before the middle, but I love reading about Harriet and her antics, and Phee's attempts to rein her in, which make the book the most fun ever.
Reading this series makes you want to sit back and watch the action, because you know you don't want to be anywhere near the scary seniors, who think they're actual sleuths (they're not). There's always something going on, and it is a great enjoyment to read. The ending comes and it's way too soon; when we find the murderer the motives are given, and as old as time (as they all are everywhere). It's a funny climax and I couldn't ask for more. I look forward to the next in the series. Recommended.
I was given an advance copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley but this in no way influenced my review.
More on J.C. Eaton's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/e/j-c-eaton/
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