Golden Age of Detective Fiction

Lois Williams, a recent widow mourning the loss of her airline pilot husband in a fiery explosion, finds solace in organizing a tour of historic houses for Glenville’s 250th anniversary. After seeking permission from Mrs. Abigail Montfret to add her landmark house to the tour, Lois is unexpectedly asked to witness the elderly woman’s will despite never getting a good look at Mrs. Monfret’s face and an air of tension in the house. Lois Williams reluctantly agrees to sign the will. Shortly after leaving, Mrs. Montfret dies, supposedly due to old age.

Lois hears Mrs. Montfret’s voice again, emanating from a much younger woman while sitting at the local bar. Thus, it sparks her interest in investigating her death. She enlists the help of the attorney handling the will, and he takes meticulous measures to validate the signature, raising Lois’s suspicions. Lois believes it’s all too much of a “good thing” and believes she has unwittingly been duped into helping someone perpetrate insurance fraud.

After consulting with the town paper’s owner and editor, Bob Oliver, they investigate together. Strange occurrences escalate, including mysterious phone calls and suspicious individuals lurking outside Lois’s home, who Lois believes means to kill or bodily harm her.

When an actress skilled in portraying older women dies in a supposed mugging, coincidentally on the night of Bob and Lois’s visit, they bring their suspicions that this woman was hired to impersonate Mrs. Montfret for Lois Williams’s benefit to induce her to sign a will to Detective Nathan Shapiro. Shapiro’s superior, Bill Weigand, sends him to Glenville to investigate further. The culprit’s identity is ultimately uncovered through Shapiro’s inquiries, Bob’s journalistic instincts, and Lois Williams’s daring to penetrate the lion’s den and enter Mrs. Montfret’s home to find a dastardly scheme.

The Review

Murder and Blueberry Pie was a rather middling mystery with the outstanding amateur detective Lois Williams. Lois is still deeply involved in the grieving process and is wholly sympathetic and likable. She is new to town and, with the recent death of her husband, not well integrated into the community, making her an easy mark for scammers.

However, despite her grief, she is curious, quick-witted, and sure of herself. Despite reassurances from the attorney handling Mrs. Montfret’s estate and her friends at the historical society, she knows something weird is happening around her. Lois Williams is a woman who knows her mind and has no quibble going after what she wants even if faced with extreme danger, so I am sad that she is not the protagonist of this series but Nathan Shapiro, who is undoubtedly the most droopy of detectives.

Having not read any of Nathan Shapiro’s other adventures, I’m not sure if he’s always basically a human Eeyore who mopes around before disappearing into the background, but he’s not a particularly engaging character, and his involvement in the story is negligible. He spends most of his time dismissing Lois’ attempts to involve the police before finally putting his boots to the ground. He carries out a routine investigation, asks bland but informative questions, and generally seems annoyed to be working with Lois and Bob Oliver before being on the spot to put the handcuffs on the culprit.

I think the light tone of the story serves the amateur antics of Lois Williams and Bob Oliver well. Still, it massively undercuts the police procedural element and makes it almost irrelevant. I contend the story doesn’t need Nathan Shapiro, and in fact, his storyline makes the book worse because he’s so out of place with the tone of the rest of the book. Also, he is not necessary to the story; any police officer could have done his role and instead let Lois and Bob have the limelight.

The book’s light tone extends to its cozy title- which has very little to do with the actual story. I thought the book was going to be about a poisoning ala pie, or there would be some valuable clue in a blueberry pie; imagine my surprise when blueberry pie figures into the story in the most minor way- Lois bakes a pie, and she and her love interest delight in eating it.

….That’s a strange reason to name the book Murder and Blueberry Pie, but I digress.

There are several love triangles constantly evolving and revolving around Lois, and I found they enhanced my enjoyment in the book because usually one of the potential lovers was a shady murder suspect, giving the love story actual stakes. After all, I really didn’t want Lois to end up dead.

Overall, I have five stars for Lois Williams. Still, this book loses and is dragged down by changing the focus from two amateur detectives to a police procedural to bring in a character and way of solving the wholly unnecessary case since things were trundling along fine anyway. Lois was the one who suspected Mrs. Montfret was murdered; she was the one tracking down suspects; she’s the one who unmasked the dubious lawyer; she was the one who was piecing together the fraud, and I have no doubt that she would have been able to trap the murderer without Nathan Shapiro’s help.

The mystery had no frills and was pretty easy to work out, but it was fun to work out with Lois. I found the story atmospheric and eerily, especially Mrs. Montfret’s creepy airless house. The antagonist was menacing, and their antics became increasingly unhinged and thrilling as the book continued. There were several points where I thought Lois was actually going to be killed, which is rare- most of the time, the protagonist is rarely in any real danger. If the book had wanted to commit to having an amateur detective and a police procedural element, killing Lois and then bringing in Shapiro would have made the most sense since the stakes would have been high. This is a missed opportunity to get these two storylines together seamlessly.

Murder a Blueberry Pie is a book with great characters that are let down by the story’s plotting and story beats that don’t come together well or have a poor payoff.