Book Review: Last Puzzle & Testament

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Last Puzzle & Testament     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Parnell Hall
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Humorous   Amateur Sleuth
Series: Puzzle Lady Mysteries - Cora Felton # 2
Bantam, Sept 2000, $23.95 352 pp. 352pp

Everyone in the small town of Bakerhaven, Connecticut is familiar with local celebrity Cora Felton. Better known as the Puzzle Lady, her syndicated crossword puzzles appear in over two hundred and fifty newspapers across the nation. There is a secret concerning Cora that very few people in town know. The cigarette smoking, hard drinking woman does not write the crossword puzzle column. Her niece Sherry Carter does because the young woman thinks that Cora fits the image of the PUZZLE LADY.

When eccentric and wealthy Emma Hurley dies, all her heirs gather together to learn they are to participate in a series of puzzle solving. If the person gets the puzzle right, as judged by Cora Felton, they receive more puzzles. The first person to solve the entire puzzle will gain the whole fortune. The avaricious relatives will go to any lengths to see that they are first and they do so with the murder of one participant. Since the pair was so successful at solving Bakerhaven’s last homicide, Cora and Sherry turn detective.

Parnell Hall is an excellent storyteller who knows how to entice his readers into wanting to buy and read his puzzling and exciting works as soon as they come out. The puzzles included in each novel make the reader feel like part of the story and that makes them want to finish the book in one sitting. The well-drawn characters seem like people the readers know. Cora’s heart of gold personality gives LAST PUZZLE AND TESTAMENT a special feel that turns this novel into a keeper that will be read many times over in the years to come.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner