Murder at the Male Revue

May 22, 2017
Full of blue-haired humor, Perona’s overbusy third bucket-list mystery (after 2016’s Murder Under the Covered Bridge) takes Francine McNamara and the other senior ladies of the Summer Ridge Bridge Club to Brownsburg, Ind., for a performance of the Royal Buckingham Male Dance Revue. When the show is disrupted by the fatal stabbing of Camille Ledfelter, the president of Brownsburg’s town council and aunt of the revue’s owner, Francine and company are determined to uncover the killer and the motive. Ex-lovers and extramarital affairs all factor in, along with a healthy dose of blackmail. And when photos of an old family cemetery turn up among Camille’s office files, the ladies find themselves in imminent danger. The main characters are endearing to a fault, but the excessive amount of backstory makes it hard to follow who did what to whom. A subplot involving Francine’s discovery of a mysterious medicine labeled “no. 58” on property once belonging to her great-grandfather only adds to the muddle.

May 1, 2017
Strippers may bring out the worst in some people, but murder is surely excessive.Still working their way through the infamous bucket list that's already landed them in trouble twice (Murder Under the Covered Bridge, 2016, etc.), the ladies of the Summer Ridge Bridge Club choose item No. 57--go to a male strip club--from reporter Joy McQueen's list. Their caterer friend Mary Ruth's agreement to supply the food for the buffet at a male revue fundraiser creates the perfect opportunity to mark off Joy's item. Helping out are Francine and bubbly Charlotte, next-door neighbor to Town Council president Camille Ledfelter, who's arranged the fundraiser. A series of food-related accidents causes the lights to go out, and a bloodcurdling scream sends Francine, a retired nurse, rushing backstage, where she finds that Camille's been stabbed. Although the police warn them to butt out, Charlotte's like a bulldog when it comes to sleuthing, and along with Francine and some of the other ladies, she takes up the hunt after Camille dies from her wounds. Eric, the nephew Camille raised, is a member of the revue, and the ladies offer to help arrange the funeral to stay close to him as a source of information. When Eric tells them that Camille was worth more than $2 million, a sum that seems suspiciously high for her business interests, they begin to suspect that Camille was blackmailing at least one person, perhaps more--and what would make a better motive for murder? Their knowledge of what's happened in Brownsburg, Indiana, over the years leads them to several promising suspects and also to danger. Mirth and murder make for a winning combination in this cozy whose sleuths are as quirky as the suspects.

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July 1, 2017

The septuagenarians of the Summer Ridge Bridge Club in Brownsburg, IN, prove there's plenty of time for fun and murder investigations in their third adventure, following Murder Under the Covered Bridge. The women all have bucket lists; Joy McQueen hopes to cross off attending a male strip club from hers, but she didn't plan to have the charity revue turn into a food disaster and then a murder scene. When the town council president is stabbed, Francine McNamara and her friend Charlotte team up to find the killer in a fun mystery with multiple strip scenes and food accidents. VERDICT These lively senior amateur sleuths will appeal to fans of Rita Lakin's "Gladdy Gold" mysteries.--LH

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