Dead Duck (Sam and Hollis Mystery)

Rating:
Summary: Who killed de judge? Everybody has a motive.
Review: In the second of her series involving crime beat reporter Hollis Ball, and her ghostly ex-husband, Sam Westcott, Chappell takes a sardonic look at both the court system and the colletor's mania that surrounds carved decoys.

When a judge is beaned with a priceless decoy, the first question on every carver and colletor's lips is, "It didn't hurt the decoy did it?" Hollis, of course has taken quite an interest in the dead judge herself, since she covered the trial where the opinionated jurist gave a wife killer a six-month sentence.

Though Hollis feels the judge got no more than justice, she agrees to look into the puzzle when a home town boy is accused.

And Hollis has her hands full. Besides the usual suspects, every lawyer who ever plead a case before him wanted the judge dead. Hollis' dead husband, Sam, steps in to keep her safe -- his mission in death, once more.

Hip deep in carvers, collectors, and lawyers, not to mention the former fiance of her "almost" boyfriend Officer Ormand Friendly, Hollis ends up as close to death as she is to the truth.

As a former reporter who covered the crime beat on a small town daily, and one who knows how to play Tonk, I have to say that Chappell, her well sanded wit and appreciation for the ridiculous side of the news business, is in rare form with this one.

Rating:
Summary: Duck soup, anyone?
Review: It is indeed unfortunate that the books in this series are going out of print so soon after being published. It is an excellent series which deserves to be remembered. It is too bad Hollis is being better developed as a character than her husband's ghost is. Helen's readers deserve very well rounded and complete characters who are worth their effort to read about and who are capable of not only carrying on delightful conversations, but who are constantly doing the unexpected as well. And it is also too bad that pointing out the fallacies of the newspaper business on a regular basis aren't being given the attention they deserve. Helen is trying her best to present this in a witty and sardonic manner but she doesn't always succeed. This can be done without detracting from the mystery at all but apparently Helen isn't up to the challenge.