A review by grid
Arsenic and Old Puzzles by Parnell Hall

4.0

Liked this a lot in spite of it being pretty far from my usual sci-fi sweet spot. I picked it up off the new mystery shelf at the library (next to the new sci-fi) because it had “puzzles” in the title. Then got sucked in with sudoku in the first chapter and the overall premise of an old lady with a puzzle column in the newspaper who also happens to be the first person the police chief calls when he doesn’t know where to start with a murder mystery. I told myself I was reading to the end mostly to see if the puzzles themselves actually tied into the murder (only a bit, really, and not in a clever way), but if I’m honest I definitely was mostly reading because the old “puzzle lady” is written with a lot of wit and charm. (And it was a very fast read.)

Anyway, I enjoyed this, probably not enough to go find any of the other 13 novels in the series, but if I get a craving, it’s nice to know they exist.