Near the start of Balzo's lively fourth Maggy Thorsen mystery (after 2008's Bean There, Done That
), a sudden spring “thundersnow†traps Maggy and friends in Benson Plaza, the Brookhills, Wis., strip mall where Maggy rents space for her coffee shop, Uncommon Grounds. Cut off from all communication, with minimum light and no heat in her store, Maggy decides to seek help elsewhere in the plaza. In the snow she stumbles on the mall's landlord, Way Benson, with a hatchet or cleaver buried in his back. Since Way was threatening to evict Maggy and other Benson Plaza proprietors in order to sell the mall to a superstore chain, Benson had no lack of enemies. Murder suspects include the mall's barber, an elderly pharmacist, the lone worker at the Bible Store and the Vietnamese father and daughter with a food shop. Credible characters and a well-constructed plot compensate for Maggy's sometimes tedious deductive methods. (June)
