MURDER TALKS TURKEY: A Yooper Mystery
By Deb Baker
MIDNIGHT INK (Trade paperback format) May 1, 2008 ($13.95)
ISBN-10: 0738712256
ISBN-13: 978-0738712253
Reviewed by Cherie Jung
Gertie Johnson is 66 years old. Her son was the former sheriff of Stonely, Michigan. Currently he is recovering from a near fatal illness that left him mentally unstable. Sometimes he thinks he's a P.O.W. in Vietnam. Other times he thinks he's still the sheriff. Gertie is a widow whose ninety-something mother-in-law still lives with her. She hasn't quite forgiven her husband for dying and leaving her with his cantankerous old mother. Gertie is also one of the partners in the newly formed Trouble Buster Investigative Company. Good friends Cora Mae and Kitty are the other partners. The trio are excited because they have their first paying client, sort of.
While Gertie and Cora Mae are waiting in line at the credit union a masked man enters and orders them all to the floor while he robs one customer and the vault. Gertie is a very credible witness. She saw what others were either too frightened to see or were face-down on the floor and couldn't see. Why then, is the acting sheriff completely uninterested in what she knows she saw? And why is it, the more she tries to sort things out, the more it looks like she's a rampaging outlaw herself?
This is the first of the "Yooper" series by Deb Baker that I've read, but I'll be getting copies of the other two titles on my next trip to the bookstore.
I wasn't very keen on the crime -- a botched bank robbery gone awry -- but Gertie, her friends, and partners are such a "hoot," as they say, that the crime really isn't that important. The fun is tagging along with Gertie and the others as they try to sort out who did what, when, and why. Oh, and how.
It seems that no matter what she does, it just makes things look worse for her. Is she a killer? Did she have something to do with the hold-up? Why is she the only one who saw what happened when there were plenty of potential witnesses around? And why does the acting sheriff seem to have it in for her?
To say any more would deprive readers of the fun of reading this book for themselves. It's a quick, fun read.
Other titles in the series include MURDER GRINS AND BEARS IT and MURDER PASSES THE BUCK.
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