Book Review

When Jozy Landis walked into the school library where she worked as a sub, she didn’t expect to find the body of 4th grade teacher’s aide Joan Griffin slumped over the copier, dead from a gunshot wound. Then an unknown assailant chases Jozy from the building and the fun begins. Soon, Jozy’s a person of interest in Joan’s murder and two men from her high school days re-enter her life: “Punky” Becker, now a detective with the Manchester, N.H., police who investigates the murder, and Cooper Montgomery, the drop-dead gorgeous senior she had a crush on in high school. Cooper’s now a reporter for the Queen City Expose. Fired from his New York City newspaper because a source repudiated a story he wrote, he now travels with lawyer in tow, working on getting a shield law for reporters passed when he’s not chasing after ghosts, UFOs, and other things going splat in the night in his job for the lowest-rated scandal rag in the city. He seems to show up whenever another body turns up or whenever Jozy finds herself in another tight situation—of which there are many. Allowing her dormant crush to revive itself, Jozy finds Cooper’s behavior confusing as he alternately pursues her and the sensational story she represents.

When Jozy gets fired from her teaching job because of the notoriety the murder has given the school, Cooper hires her as his “assistant” and with her aid, uncovers more of a story than he expects. Jozy’s guilt is looking more and more like a frame, and the two try to explore every angle—when they aren’t exploring each other—as they try to uncover the Who? and the Why? Throw in a biker, a schoolteacher, and Jozy’s murderous former boyfriend—all who had affairs with Joan—a timorous alley cat named Scaredy, a nun who used to pretend to be her twin sister, and a dog-dancing contest, and the cast of odd-ball characters is complete. Then a mysterious blue truck tries to run down Jozy as she stands in front of her apartment. Ghostly phone calls from the murdered Joan and several appearances of her apparition give them the final clue to learning what the murderer is after and just who he might be…

MY OPINION: This is a fun book! It’s like one of those mapcap comedy-mysteries of the 1930’s with the smart-mouthed reporter and his equally snappy girlfriend solving the crime. The breezy repartee between Jozy and Cooper reminded me of the dialogue from His Gal Friday, a movie which is mentioned several times in the story. The characters are zany, the story fast-moving, the plot just believable enough not to cause a jangle to the senses. Mention of current events/people/slogans and other modern icons make it just realistic enough. The only problems I had were not with the story itself but with many typos and misuse of words—such as bower for bowler, transpose for transcribe, vertebrate for vertebra, etc.—which an alert editor should have caught. Since I’m judging this story on quality of content and not format, I’m going to ignore those, however, and recommend this novel if you want an entertaining story and a good many chuckles along the way.