A Zebra Mystery Puzzler #26 - Murder by the Book

It's been fifteen books since we last read the exploits of Kay Barth, assistant district attorney in Aspen, Colorado (Death on the Slopes), which is way too long.  I loved author Norma Schier's first entry into the Zebra Mystery Puzzler series, and this one only solidified my love for her writing. And Schier's love of puzzles and anagrams certainly comes into play again in this mystery, as does her habit of switching points-of-view throughout the book.  Rather than stay with the protagonist, as most murder mysteries do, Schier seems to enjoy following any number of characters throughout her books, which plays mercilessly on the reader's ability to figure out just who the killer really is!

 

Murder by the Book switches the focus from the ski slopes, which featured heavily in the previous book, to book collecting and the victim's bookstore.  Once again, the story begins not with our intrepid sleuth, but rather, with one of the suspects - Adele Bradford, wife of the murder victim - as she flies from New York to Colorado to confront the husband that left her, taking all of the money and disappearing without a trace.  The scene then switches to a sidewalk cafe, where Adele Bradford's daughter, Ronnie, is having lunch with her boyfriend, David Truro - lunch and a rather heated argument that ends with him storming off, telling her, "This can't go on any longer.  I've had it" (p. 9).  And, wouldn't you know it, but the D.A., Kay Barth, and her own boyfriend, Jason Ryder, happened to be lunching at the next table and overheard the entire thing.  Little did they realize then just how important that knowledge would later be!

 

Now, Schier switches scenes yet again to the Poison Pen Bookshop, where "Brad" Bradford is informing a very determined customer - one Frederick Carrington - that his early edition of Edgar Allan Poe's book is not for sale, no matter what offer Carrington makes.  But Carrington is more than determined, and he will get that book no matter what it takes.  Enter Jason and Kay as the dissatisfied man leaves the store.  Jason frequents the store and is familiar with the owner, but Kay is only just now starting her joy of reading mysteries.  Another change of scene takes our dynamic duo to the Green Goose pub, located, conveniently enough, right next to the Poison Pen.  Inside they happen upon Carrington once again, who quickly leaves, informing them he's going to make another offer to Bradford in order to get that book.  They strike up a conversation with the owner of the pub, Lulu Porter, when Ronnie shows up looking for her boyfriend. And to think ... all of this happens in just the first chapter!

 

Schier gives a quick jump in time, and with Chapter Two, we reunite with chief of police, Mark Field, who gets the call that Bradford has been found dead in his bookstore.  His neighbor, Lulu, found him; the overly persistent Carrington saw someone leaving the store; the ex-wife who is not an ex-wife arrived in town the morning before the killing; the daughter's boyfriend, David, has no alibi for the time of the murder; and the estranged son Kevin shows up just in time to "learn" that he and his sister have inherited their father's bookstore - the only problem is, Ronnie has gone missing, and no one knows where to find her.  It's a grand ol' mystery with plenty of suspects, plenty of clues, and plenty of motives.  It's up to Kay, Jason, and Chief Field to sift through it all to uncover the truth - and to hopefully find Ronnie Bradford before she becomes victim number two!

 

It turns out one of the biggest clues is an acrostic that Bradford had on his desk at the time of his death.  The killer clearly did not realize how important the list of names and book titles were, or he/she would have never left it there.  It's interesting, because that paper with the list of names and list of books is the first internal illustration on page 29, and from the moment I saw it, I picked up on the importance of the first letter of each name - however, Schier does not make it that easy.  It's not until nearly the end of the book when the truth regarding that acrostic comes to light, something I doubt very many people would think to consider.  But that revelation leads Kay to the identity of the killer - that, alongside a very important clue on the cover art (one that, I can honestly say, I picked up on right away, which revealed the identity of the killer from the start - I just didn't get the motive until the end).

 

Speaking of the cover - there is no signature or other identifying mark that reveals the identity of the cover artist, which is a shame, as I love the art.  I think Kay looks considerably more attractive in this cover art than she did back on the cover of book 11, and that give-away clue is subtle, but not too-subtle so as to be missed.  You just have to know what you are looking for, and you'll see it.  As far as the internal illustrations go, once again, there is no signature or other identification of the artist, but those internals are gorgeous.  I particularly like the one on page 143, where Kay goes to question Adele Bradford - I think the artist captures the personality and essence of both of these women perfectly, and one can actually feel the tension between the two screaming off  the page! I can almost picture in my mind a Dynasty-style cat-fight between these two.  And since I mentioned it, I cannot ignore the fact that the author has Kay Barth set in Colorado, and one of the characters/suspects in the story happens to have the last name "Carrington."  Now, this book was published in 1979, two years before the Dynasty nighttime soap premiered in January 1981; however, it is quite the coincidence that the television show was set in Colorado and featured a wealthy family whose last name happens to be Carrington.  Of course, Aspen is 160 miles from Denver (where the soap was set), but still...

 

One thing I did catch in the story is that the author managed to mention the Jerome Hotel (a/k/a Hotel Jerome), which Kay refers to as the "grandfather of Aspen hotels."  In the real world, the Hotel Jerome was built in the late 1800s by Jerome B. Wheeler, a co-owner of Macy's, and over the years, it has become quite the landmark in Aspen. A quick look online reveals the hotel to be QUITE expensive - a single night can cost upwards of $2,300 or more!  Definitely a hotel for the upper echelon!

 

I do find it odd that Schier does not stick with her main character, but rather, she constantly switches point of view from one character to another.  It gives the story an almost-soap opera style feel to it, as you are following the lives of several different characters, not just one.  It also makes pin-pointing the killer a little bit more difficult, since you learn a bit more about each of the characters from their own points-of-view, rather than just the protagonist's, and it gives the characters a bit more depth.  At least with this book, Schier did not wait until we were seven chapters in before she brought Kay into the story!

 

Thankfully, there are two more books in the series by Schier, meaning Kay Barth still has some mysteries to solve before this series ends!

 

RATING:  10 telling telephone numbers out of 10 for a creatively puzzling mystery that really tests the reader's powers of observation and analytical skills! 

A Zebra Mystery Puzzler #11 - Death on the Slopes

With the eleventh Zebra Mystery Puzzler, we are treated to a new author to the series, Norma Schier.  This is the first of four books Schier writes for this series, all of which feature the young assistant district attorney, Kay Barth.  From what I have been able to learn, Norma Scheir was the author's actual name, and aside from these Zebra Mystery Puzzlers, Ms. Schier has also authored some very unique short stories over the years in which she parodies well-known mystery writers, using anagrams throughout her tales.  In fact, many of the pseudonyms used for these short stories are anagrams of actual authors, many of which are collected in Schier's book, The Anagram Detectives (for more about this, see Norma Schier - Anagam Detectives).  However, other than these Zebra mysteries and the short stories, I was unable to find any other books by Schier.

Death on the Slopes was published at the end of 1978, just one year prior to her book, The Anagram Detectives - leading me to believe that her short story fiction was published prior to her first Zebra Mystery Puzzler (and those stories may have been why Kensington asked her to write some of the mysteries for this series).  The book opens in rather unique way, with readers being dropped into a scene just moments before the murder occurs, as seen and heard through the eyes and ears of a witness who does not come back into play until considerably later in the book.  We even get our first interior illustration in that barely three-page prologue - but it is definitely enough to set the stage for all that comes after!

The first six chapters introduce readers to the vindictive, self-absorbed victim, Valerie Mayne, as well as the large cast of suspects - from Jason Ryder, newly transplanted from New York to Colorado to teach as the college in Aspen; to Drew Courtney, the tenured professor who will determine whether Jason is hired; to Alicia Courtney, the professor's wife who spends more time in the bottle than anywhere else; to Tammie Courtney, the professor's daughter, who is not thrilled her boyfriend is paying more attention to Valerie than her; to Anton Duval, a Frenchman who is a member of the ski patrol and thinks himself quite the ladies' man; to Charlie Winstead, the head of the ski patrol on the Aspen slopes, who is still getting over the fact his wife left him - with the exception of Valerie, who showed up on his doorstep in New York claiming to be an old friend of his dead wife who was in need of a place to stay before following him to Colorado. Jason knows none of these people.  When Valerie turns up dead, and Jason is the prime suspect, he can't help but wonder if one of these people is the real killer?

And that is the very question to which Kay Barth, the young assistant district attorney with shiny black hair that tumbles to her shoulders, wants to find an answer!  Our protagonist of the tale finally makes her appearance in chapter 7, well after the other characters, the murder, and the setting are all established.  Schier provides readers with a very strong female lead, one who goes up against the chief of police, Mark Field, in an effort to solve this murder.  She quickly realizes that Jason Ryder is not the killer, but Field thinks it is only because she has developed feelings for the guy.  Determined to show Field that she is more than just a pretty face (and the mother of a young girl), Kay sets out to uncover the truth about what happened to Valerie Mayne - the only problem is, Valerie Mayne doesn't exist!  None of her back story that she told Jason checks out, and no one has come to claim her body, despite news reports showing her picture all over the place.  Kay realizes that in order to solve the murder, she is going to have to figure out who Valerie Mayne really is!

The mystery is very well written, and Schier does manage to throw out there a number of clues that will lead the reader in different directions.  However, when Kay ultimately tracks down Valerie's real identity and begins to put the pieces of her past together, there is one piece of that puzzle that made it clear for me who the killer was (and yes, it is definitely one of those suspects listed above - only not the one you would expect!).  And I found it interesting that Schier changes point-of-view a number of times throughout the book, switching between Jason and Kay, and even among some of the other cast as well - but she is careful not to give away anything too early in the story, which makes for a great read.

The internal illustrations are nicely done, but one again, no credit is given, and there are no signatures on any of the drawings.  They are quite detailed, reminding me a great deal of Ruth Sanderson's work in the Nancy Drew books published by Simon & Schuster back in the early 1980s.  (And speaking of which, as an aside here, Schier does manage to sneak in a Nancy Drew reference in there, when Kay tells her daughter she is investigating a crime, and her daughter asks, "Like Nancy Drew?" [p. 83])  I just wish the books had given a list of the "clues" that were supposedly in the illustrations, as I looked at all eight internal illustrations, and I honestly did not see any clue at all in them.  The cover, on the other hand, does have one rather subtle clue.  And speaking of the cover, Bruce Emmett (who painted the covers of the Marcia Blair books in this series) provided the art for this book - which gives this book another "Nancy Drew" connection, as Emmett provided the second cover art for Nancy Drew 68 - The Elusive Heiress.  (I won't even mention the "Ski Jump" sign in the internal illustration on page 85, which made me immediately think of Nancy Drew 29 - Mystery at the Ski Jump!)

This ranks among the best in this series, and it makes me look forward to Schier's future entries into the Zebra Mystery Puzzlers.

RATING:  9 blue Pontiac Bonnevilles out of 10 for mixing murder and mystery in the snow-covered mountains of Colorado and introducing readers to a great new sleuth!