Mindy Starns Clark The Trouble with Tulip

The Trouble with Tulip

Mindy Starns Clark

Harvest House, Jul 2005, $11.99

ISBN: 0736914854

In Mulberry Glen, Pennsylvania Josephine "Jo" Tulip writes syndicated newspaper column "Tips from Tulip" that provides advice on all sorts of household matters. However, no one not even her grandma who ran the column before her warned or gave any practical guidance to Jo on how to deal with an invasion of relatives arriving for her upcoming marriage to Bradford Bosworth. Though tomorrow is the gala, a wide awake nervous Jo decides to jog though her clock displays 11:48 that is PM. On her run through the deserted streets, she hears an angry loud voice coming from Edna Pratt's home, but keeps on trotting.

The next morning Jo's best friend photographer Danny Watkins is taking crime scene photos of a dead Edna in which the police can't identify a solution inside a bucket standing near the corpse. Danny calls Jo to see if she can identify the liquid; Jo immediately runs over to Edna's home to help. While the police assume suicide by strange chemical means, Jo and Danny believe murder occurred. They begin to investigate and soon learn some odd things about the victim and her brother.

Because of the strong cast fully developed with flaws, fans of Mindy Starns Clark's wonderful million dollar mysteries and amateurs sleuth readers will enjoy her first "Smart Chick Mystery". The key is the characters starting with the bride, her photo partner, the groom, and their respective families including the dog. The who-done-it is cleverly developed with a light sense of humor mostly provided by the heroine as she and her cohort struggle to persuade the police that the queen of solutions know better than the professionals when it comes to the neighbor's corpse.

Harriet Klausner