On Spine of Death

July 15, 2022

Thriller writer Tess Harrow is in the cellar of her grandfather's dilapidated hardware store when her daughter takes a sledge hammer to the floor above, and bones rain down on Tess's head. Once again, Tess is at the center of a crime scene; this time, she has to prove that her grandfather was not a killer. But the bones are stolen from the morgue before she can bring in a friend, Peter, who is an expert on hatchets (the weapon used on the old bones). Peter does point out that the whole story of bones and missing women reminds him of the plot of an old book set in a town a little too reminiscent of Winthrop. Tess is afraid to tell the sheriff about that book though, because his older sister was one of the local women who disappeared. In "Keystone Kops"--style scenes set around the morgue, a muddy mountain, and the hardware store, bones and books disappear and reappear as FBI agents and Tess hunt for a killer. VERDICT Berry's sequel to Buried in a Good Book is a quirky story for those who enjoy funny cozies.--Lesa Holstine

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November 15, 2022
A prospective bookstore owner learns that renovations can be murder. In the cozy world, everyone has a plan until she discovers a set of bones under the floorboards. But mystery author Tess Harrow, who's always been an overachiever, unearths two complete human skeletons while turning her grandad's old hardware store into The Paper Trail, a bookshop she plans to open in her new Wild West-kitsch-filled hometown of Winthrop, Washington. A police investigation of the premises, even one led by handsome Sheriff Victor Boyd, is the last thing Tess needs right now, especially since she's just hired even handsomer handyman Jared Wilson to help complete the project. Fortunately, Jared isn't really a handyman--he's an undercover FBI agent sent to help Nicki Nickerson, a fellow fed working undercover as the town's librarian--so he doesn't have to actually do any manual labor. Unfortunately, Jared's so dumb that he can't even remember that his cover name is Jared Wright, and he threatens to blow the entire operation every time he introduces himself. Boyd's inquiry stalls until a friend shows Tess a copy of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, a mystery she blurbed but never read, which describes a set of murders in the fictional town of Heythrop that mirror her current puzzle with disturbing accuracy--except that in Heythrop, there were three sets of bones. Is there a third corpse yet to be disinterred? Will Jared's doglike devotion to her, along with his hot bod, destabilize the relationship Tess is just beginning to build with sarcastic Victor? One never knows, does one? Juggling one snarky sheriff, one junior G-man, and three skeletons proves a bit much even for Berry's seasoned heroine.

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