A Zebra Mystery Puzzler #5 - You'll Die Laughing

With this fifth Zebra Mystery Puzzler, we circle back to that red-headed Hollywood gossip columnist, Maxine "Max" Reynolds, who cracked her first case in the first book in this series.  Author Marjorie Grove (a/k/a Martin Grove) takes this smart, savvy sleuth across the pond to England in this second murder mystery, and so readers have the opportunity to follow Max as she ventures around London trying to solve yet another murder.

You'll Die Laughing sends Max over to England by her bosses in order to get the scoop on an older comedian who is making a comeback in a new television show.  But before she can even get on the plane, the actor is murdered - his throat slit from ear to ear! - and her trip goes from covering a comeback to solving a murder!  Unlike the first book, where Max actually discovered the body and saw the scene of the crime, this time she not only does not see the scene of the crime, but she doesn't even know what the victim looks like.  However, someone is clearly wanting to help her, because before she leaves for England, she receives a strange telegram that simply reads:  "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" (p. 20).  An odd clue, since anyone who has ever taken a typing class knows that sentence is one that uses every letter of the alphabet.  And even more odd is the fact that Max can't figure it out, but her somewhat boyfriend, Rob Allan, is the one who points her in the right direction.

As with the first book, despite the murder being announced early in this one, Max does not actually become involved and start investigating until well after the first half of the story.  Instead, Grove gives us incessant details about the roads Max takes to get around Los Angeles and Hollywood, the food she orders at the restaurants; and even once she arrives in England, the reader is treated to considerable information about the roads and locations.  At least we do get some entertainment in the form of Max and Toothie (Pamela Tooth, her secretary) - their banter is so much fun to read, I almost wish Pamela was at her side the entire time.  Perhaps in a future mystery, we'll get that treat!  We also get to experience more of Max's bosses, the owners of TeleFilm, the show business daily for which Max writes - one is a domineering woman who is clearly in complete control, and the other is her happy-go-lucky husband who seems oh-so-happy to let his wife run the show.  

I give Grove credit for crafting a much better mystery in this book than in the first (even though that one was not bad, it was not quite as convoluted as this one).  Since we don't get to "see" the murder in the book, the only glimpse we have is that depicted on the cover (which is off, since Max was never at the crime scene and never saw the body - yet that apparently did not stop the publisher from having the cover artist depict such a scene!).  There is a glaring clue on the cover that also appears in one of the internal illustrations, so I do at least give them props for that, as it did help me as I was trying to figure out what was going on with this one.  There is quite a bit of craziness going on, as Max meets a man on the flight over the ocean who claims to be a reporter himself, and she finds a slight attraction to him, even agreeing to go out with him.  But then she meets the person who sent the telegram and finds herself a pawn of a British spy who wants to use Max's investigation for their own purposes.  Then she learns that the reporter is lying to her, and there is a possibility he is an intelligent agent for an enemy country!  And if that weren't confusing enough, she discovers the comedian who was killed could have been an agent as well!  Grove keeps the reader guessing as to who is telling the truth, who is really an agent and who is not, and what in the world is really going on here, but by the time you reach that sealed chapter at the end, it all starts to make sense (and the killer becomes apparent...).

The book utilizes a number of actual locations in England - from Heathrow Airport (p. 87) to the Savoy Hotel (p. 88) - and I have no idea of the directions from the airport to the hotel are accurate, but considering how detailed they are, I'm going to guess that they might well be!  The Savoy does have a side that faces the Strand as indicated in the book (p. 88), and it does overlook the River Thames as also stated in the book (p. 89).  From what I found online, the Savoy does appear to be quite the ritzy hotel (The Savoy London), so I have to wonder if perhaps Grove stayed there at one point.  Another location that was real (it has closed since this book was published) is The Grove pub that the British spy sets up a meeting with Max upon her arrival in London (The Grove), which was located on Beauchamp Place, as it is said in the story (p. 94).  In addition, there is the Inigo Jones restaurant in Covent Garden (p. 114), which closed not long after this book was published, named after the famous architect (Inigo Jones).  Perhaps Grove gets so caught up in his details about these real locations, he can't help but provide the most accurate directions on how to get there!

The internal illustrations are only a tad bit better than the illustrations in the first Max Reynolds mystery, but the accuracy has definitely not improved.  Max is drawn with the absolute worst, unfashionable hairstyles that make her look considerably older than she is; and the action depicted is certainly off - such as the illustration on page 169, which shows a man standing, holding a folded paper with a huge seal on it; in the actual story, he is sitting at the table with Max, and the document he pulls from his jacket pocket could not be anywhere near the size of the paper in the illustration.  Also, the drawing on page on page 200 show Max leaning against the bar, while a man is mixing a drink behind her - and in the foreground is a box containing mixing tools; yet, in the story, Max is relaxing in an overstuffed chair and notices the bar tools when the man moves some bottles around at the bar!  Definitely not accurate at all!  And let's face it - the Max shown in this final illustration is by far much prettier, much sexier, and definitely much younger than the Max drawn in the earlier illustrations in this book.  There are no signatures on any of the illustrations, or on the cover painting, so there's no way to know who did the art.

I definitely liked this mystery better than the first Max Reynolds' story, and I'm hoping it's a sign that her mysteries only get better and better as the series goes along.

RATING:  9 bowls of chilled cream of watercress soup out of 10 for a not-so-easy to solve murder mystery that was definitely an enjoyable read!