Main Course Corpse and Other Holiday Horrors

No Thanksgiving menu is complete without a Leslie Meier murder mystery.  So I helped myself to Turkey Day Murder (one of the two novels packaged inside Gobble, Gobble Murder, lest there be any confusion; the other is Turkey Trot Murder, which I devoured last year).  Turkey Day Murder serves up the proverbial Tom Turkey -- or, in this case, TomTom Turkey.  Yet it isn't the bird that's on the chopping block.  It's his minder, indigenous Metinnicut Curt Nolan.  An unpopular firebrand whose dog killed his neighbors' chickens, Curt becomes even more of a pariah when he speaks out against the casino that his fellow tribespeople plan to build.  Disgusted by the prospect of such a lurid display, he instead supports the museum that the town initially promised.

So when Curt turns up dead after a blow from a Metinnicut war club, no one is surprised.  And for once local reporter and amateur sleuth Lucy Stone vows to steer clear.  At least until the ancient and formidable Miss Tilley goads her into launching an investigation.  I know that Miss Tilley is supposed to be the kind of ornery old lady we all secretly love, a more straitlaced Sophia Petrillo if you will, but to me, she's a bossy biddy who should mind her own business.  Yet crime is like catnip to Lucy, so she dives in despite discouragement from her husband and the police, not to mention the threat to her safety.  As always, I'm fascinated by this woman who does things I'd never do, right down to adopting Curt's bloodthirsty dog, all in the context of an everything-will-be-okay cozy.

Because feel-good fiction, however homicidally fraught, is always my happy place.