Wicked Schemes — Deb Pines

Wicked Schemes is the ninth book in Deb Pines' traditional whodunit Chautauqua Mysteries featuring the wise and witty reporter/grandma sleuth Mimi Goldman.An Agatha Christie for the text-message age, IndieReader calls the top-selling series set in Chautauqua, New York.When a local online message-board post says, A Murder is Announced, all are welcome, on July 18, 2021, at 9:15 p.m. at Merrill Manor, Chautauqua is abuzz.Many show up expecting a harmless murder-mystery game.But then the lights go out. An intruder yells, Stick 'em up. Three shots are fired. And, by the door, lies . . . the body of the intruder, in costume.Was it a botched robbery? Or something else?In this page-turning riff on an Agatha Christie classic, the police, of course, are no help. So reporter and relentless snoop Mimi Goldman (a k a Chautauqua's Miss Marple) and her fearless 95-year-old sidekick Sylvia Pritchard dig in.The intruder is Johnny Vasquez, a sketchy Athenaeum server, who recently had waited on Merrill Manor's new owner Betsy Kowalski, a haughty ex-Wall Streeter. The guests—including an actor nephew, a simpering childhood friend, a tenant with a grudge, a standoffish gardener, a mansplaining ex-judge and a lovesick writer—are liars and schemers.As more bodies turn up, Mimi has to act fast—staging a deadly showdown to try to nab the killer before they strike again.Fans of Agatha Christie and Louise Penny and Only Murders in the Building will enjoy this intricately plotted whodunit that's been called a rollicking homage to the Queen of Mystery.