Partners In Crime

SENIOR SLEUTHS, BLOODY MARYS, AND BOTH KINDS OF FAT CATS…Not since Dorothy L. Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise has there been a more perfect cozy office murder — and not since Agatha Christie’s immortal Miss Marple has a more loveable geriatric sleuth been spawned. Katy Munger’s first Hubbert and Lil cozy mystery has got it all — a stuffy old firm with stuffy old routines disturbed by a few unaccustomed murders, a hilariously apoplectic boss, the indispensable brace of cats, and clever amateur sleuths of a certain age. Break out the tea and cookies to welcome T.S. Hubbert and his unforgettable Auntie Lil! T.S. tells the story (and very wittily too), but it's Lil who steals the show. She’s eighty-four years young, with a taste for Bloody Marys at any time of day, a fine-tuned appreciation of life’s other pleasures, and a remarkable talent for detecting. It begins, as so many things do, with a phone T.S. (Theodore to Auntie Lil) has been retired about eight hours when he’s summoned back to Sterling & Sterling, the snooty private bank where he served as personnel manager for most of his adult life. One of the bigwigs is lying stabbed to death in the Partner’s Room and T.S.'s demanding former boss, forgetting he’s no longer his boss, is demanding a damage control. Well, that’s certainly more interesting, thinks Theodore, than “interviewing the slack-jawed sons of clients.” And besides, now he can talk back to the brass. He can even dress like it’s casual Friday and no one can say a word. Although they do. A big part of the fun is watching T.S. shock his former colleagues with his sudden assertiveness. Because who can boss around a person who’s doing you a favor? Who can fire someone who's already retired? What starts out as damage control quickly evolves into full-scale detecting as more and more partners bite the big one in unexpected ways. Auntie Lil’s all over it from the first, demonstrating not only the necessary smarts, street savvy, and moxie, but also a feminine way of looking at things that leads to a surprisingly contemporary conclusion.Fans of Golden Age mysteries will eat this irrepressible amateur detective team with a spoon, along with readers who just get a kick out of watching senior sleuths kick butt. If you like Miss Marple, Miss Silver, Miss Seeton, Mrs. Pollifax, Jessica Fletcher, Agatha Raisin, Henrie O, Hercule Poirot, and their many distinguished silver-haired colleagues, you’ll want to grab this one now. Aficionados of cozy authors like Dorothy Cannell, Carolyn Hart, M.C. Beaton, Joanne Fluke, Jana DeLeon, and Alexander McCall Smith will be equally captivated!