Fool's Puzzle (A Benni Harper Mystery) - Hardcover

Fowler, Earlene

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0425140415 ISBN 13: 9780425140413

Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime, 1994

Synopsis

Thirty-four-year-old widow Benni Harper takes a job as curator of the San Celina folk art museum only to find herself embroiled in the murder of an artist and small-town intrigues that shed new light on her own late husband's death.

About this title

About the Author:

Earlene Fowler was raised in La Puente, California, by a Southern mother and a Western father. She lives in Southern California with her husband, Allen, a large number of quilts, and twenty pairs of cowboy boots.

From Publishers Weekly:

Young, recently widowed Benni Harper, the foolhardy heroine in this predictable debut, leaves her ranch after her husband's accidental death and becomes the curator of the folk-art museum in the coastal California town of San Celina. Benni is frantically trying to assemble a quilt show when she discovers a local potter stabbed to death in the museum studio. Benni's flaky 21-year-old cousin Rita, whom Benni had seen driving away from the museum, disappears and becomes a prime suspect. When Rita calls asking for money, Benni determines not to tell the police, whose new chief, Gabe Ortiz, has warned her not to interfere in the investigation, and decides to clear Rita by finding the real murderer. The day that the quilt show opens, Benni finds a plastic bag filled with money in the attic of the museum but waits to tell Ortiz until after the opening party. When he goes to the attic to investigate, he finds, instead, the body of the museum handyman. Fowler connects all the deaths in her plot, leaving no threads hanging, but Benni's reckless actions and her love-hate relationship with the enigmatic Ortiz yield an unconvincing narrative. Mystery Guild alternate.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0425140415
• ISBN 13: 9780425140413
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 237