A Tisket, a Tasket, a Fancy Stolen Casket: A Callie Parrish Mystery
by Fran Rizer
Published by Berkley Prime Crime
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Reviewed by Kathy Perschmann
Author Fran Rizer has created a delightful sleuth with Callie Parrish, a mortuary cosmetologist at Middleton’s, an established South Carolina mortuary. Callie now works for Otis and Odell Middleton, both real characters, after a short stint teaching kindergarten and a brief and unpleasant marriage.
Callie is called to come in early to help make arrangements for the viewing and funeral of popular Bobby Saxon, a local car salesman, drinker, and womanizer. His most recent wife, brash and bouncy Betty, is coming in to make the arrangements. Bobby was the age of Callie’s older brothers, in his mid 40s, but his most recent wife was a school friend of Callie’s, fifteen years younger.
While applying makeup and styling Bobby’s hair, Callie discovers a needle broken off in Bobby’s neck. The idiot coroner decided he would accept drowning as cause of death because Bobby was found floating face down in a swimming pool and was known to be a heavy drinker. Now an autopsy must be done! Bobby’s fancy, but empty, casket is stolen, and Callie is hit on the head outside the mortuary.
The dreamy emergency room doctor, Dr. Don Walters, has decided that Callie is dateable, and after she is released with few stitches, he manages to arrange a date. Jane, Callie’s best friend, despite being blind, is her “Watson” in figuring out motives and trying to solve the crimes. Then local bar owner, June Bug Corley, is found shot in his parking lot. Callie becomes a target; she receives nasty threatening phone calls and someone tries to break into her house. Are the two deaths connected?
Will Callie figure out who is behind the deaths, before she is killed? Will her new dog Big Boy, a Great Dane puppy, ever let her finish a date with Dr. Don?
Armchair Interviews says: This is the first of three books, and they promise to be as much fun as this one.
Author’s Web site: http://www.FranRizer.com