Synopsis
Ellie Haskell returns for another hilarious mystery that begins when Ellie's long-vanished father reappears in her life, carrying the ashes of his lost love and drawing Ellie into a murderous puzzle. 17,500 first printing. Tour.
Reviews
At the beginning of this slapstick sequel to The Spring Cleaning Murders, Ellie Haskell and her husband, Ben, have left their three children with his parents and are about to depart Chitterton Falls, England, for a romantic vacation in France. But before they can get away, Ellie's gallivanting father, Morley, who abandoned her after her mother's death, returns with an urn containing the ashes of his most recent girlfriend, Harriet. Morley is supposed to pass the urn to the deceased's closest relatives, who live near Ellie's home, but he's too distraught to part with the remains. As Ellie hears the tale of her father's short tryst and his beloved's sudden death, she suspects that Harriet may have been involved in some shady business. Her concern mounts when she meets Harriet's brusque relatives. Meanwhile, Ellie's cousin Freddy and her redoubtable housecleaner, Mrs. Malloy, worry over their parts in the upcoming parish play. As Ellie, Ben, Freddie and Mrs. Malloy try to cheer up the inconsolable Morley and convince him to relinquish Harriet's ashes, more people turn up searching for the urn, and Ellie begins to wonder what's really in the shoddy vessel and whether her father was involved in Harriet's demise. A forgetful pastor and Freddy's kleptomaniac mother provide additional humor for this oddball story dominated by daffy characters and physical comedy. The suspense is so slow going, in fact, that die-hard cozy fans may wonder what happened to the mystery in this novel, enjoyable as it is. Mystery Guild selection; author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The trouble with Harriet, like the trouble with Harry in the Hitchcock film, is that she won't stay put even though she's dead. When decorator Ellie Haskell's father Morley Simons turns up at Merlin's Court, the home Ellie (The Spring Cleaning Murders, 1998, etc.) shares with her restauranteur husband Bentley, years after abandoning her, he's bearing an urn containing Harriet Brown's ashes and the interminable saga of her death in a car accident outside picturesque Sch"nbrunn, where the pair enjoyed an all too brief romance. But by the time Harriet's poker-faced relatives arrive to claim the urn, it's vanished. Has scatty Morley made away with it, as the wooden Hoppers claim? Has it been snatched by even scattier Rev. Dunstan Ambleforth, whose obsession with his 12-volume biography of Ethelwort, the patron saint of impotence, seems to make him act as strangely as his beatific subject? Or (quelle horreur!) is it possible that the ashes in the urn aren't really Harriet's after all? Readers hungry for the truth about these grave matters will have to wade through pages of arch double-entendres courtesy of the villagers who are rehearsing Murder Most Fowl, a new play by the vicar's wife Kathleen, and endless bustling by minor British types whose posturing suggests Golden Age mummies with dialogue balloons pasted over their heads. Still, anyone who agrees with Ellie's cousin Freddy that ``in this modern world, there just aren't enough curates or chaps in boaters showing up to play croquet on the vicarage lawn'' will be transported. (Mystery Guild main selection) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Cannell's sweet and daffy cozies have an interior logic all their own, much as Gracie Allen's monologues followed their own path through George Burns' straight lines. Ellie Haskell is about to depart for a vacation with her dashing spouse when who should appear on the doorstep of Merlin Court but her long-lost father, who took off after Ellie's mother died and has scarce been heard of since. He carries the ashes of his ladylove, Harriet, to return them to her family in England. Ellie despairs of her vacation and instead is soon caught up in the local legend of St. Ethelwort, patron saint of virility, and, in no particular order, the return of her aunt the kleptomaniac; a fantastically absentminded vicar and his sturdy wife; and a funereal urn that is not what it seems. A local theater production of a homegrown farce forms the thrilling denouement, but the fun is in the descriptions of Ellie's lovely home, the overwrought dialogue, and Ellie's distracted adoration of her perfect husband, the chef and cookbook writer. GraceAnne A. DeCandido
Delightful series heroine Ellie Haskell (The Spring Cleaning Murders, LJ 5/1/98) returns, this time to help her suddenly reappearing father escape an accusation of murder in Chitterton Fells. Wit, humor, and clear-as-a-bell prose. [Mystery Guild selection.]
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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