It's such a great feeling: plunging into a really good mystery that also makes me choke with laughter, then looking up the author for the first time and realizing: She's written other books that I can order up! There's going to be more fun in my summer of reading, thanks to discovering Tamara Berry.
BURIED IN A GOOD BOOK starts with a delightful premise: Tess Harrow, a bestselling thriller author, has inherited a rustic cabin in the woods, one in shabby enough shape that it could hide a few bodies, for an imagination like hers. But how Tess is going to make time for writing, when she's also brought along her (rightfully) bitter and resentful teen daughter, will demand true creativity.
Fortunately for Tess, there's no time to worry about that -- within minutes of their arrival at the cabin, an explosion shakes the mother and daughter, followed by fish parts and (gulp) human body parts landing on their vacation shelter.
Thanks to the setting in the big woods of the Northwest, Tamara Berry can toss in sightings of Bigfoot and an active logging culture. But the discovery that both the traveling librarian and the local sheriff have read all Tess's books -- and have ideas about whether or not an author belongs in their real crime scene -- turns the plot into a madcap escapade.
You know the author rule about pushing your character to cope with more threat, more danger? Berry pushes Tess to cope with the ridiculous yet real, as exotic animals trample the scene and Tess attempts to climb to the cabin roof in hopes of getting enough cell signal to demand investigation of the tangled but necessarily connected events:
There were times when having a brilliant, observant, hard-edged child was a source of inordinate pride for Tess. This was not one of those times.
She threw up her hands. "You win. I want to call the sheriff and see if he's checked on those toucans for me. This is getting ridiculous. It's been two days, and no one has said a word. I can't be the only one who's bothered by them." ...
Nothing she tried to do made any sense. No twist of the plot, no turn of the screw fit the complexities of the story—particularly now that it included flamingos. A daring escape from the zoo occurred to her only to be immediately cast aside ... Detective Gonzalez was on the hunt for a killer, not a PETA vigilante.
In addition to the wacky caper aspect and the smart conversations Tess gets into (when she can get someone besides her daughter to listen), BURIED IN A GOOD BOOK embraces another pleasure: When Tess takes risks, they're intentional and part of unraveling the crime(s) at hand -- not because of stupid mistakes. So this book is head and shoulders above many cozies. In fact, if it weren't for the itch of potential romance threaded through, the book would barely fit into the cozy category at all.
Let's see, if Donald Westlake set a book in the Northwest woods and made his protagonists into smart women, and then embedded his trademark capers and humor -- no, that might be taking the possibilities a bit far.
Besides, I enjoy Tess Harrow so much as written:
"Now, you see here, young man," she said. The steely note in her voice remained. "I don't know how you're tangled up in this dead body business, or why you're stalking me outside a grocery store, but let's get one thing straight. You don't approach me when I'm with my daughter, understand? She's a minor, and if you say one thing that's even remotely threatenig in her earshot, I'll have the sheriff on your doorstep faster than you can say harassment. ... You might have a hundred alibis, but it still wouldn't matter to me."
Put this into the summer TBR stack. (Release date is May 24 from Poisoned Pen Press.) Be a super good friend to someone else and order or buy an extra copy while you're at it. Might as well share the laughter.
PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.
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