Triple Shot: A Maggy Thorsen Mystery

In Balzo’s stimulating seventh Maggie Thorsen mystery (after 2010’s A Cup of Jo), over-the-hill TV star Ward Chitown plans to do a show about a shootout in Brookhills, Wis., in 1974 between the FBI and the Mafia that left six dead and a fortune missing. Titled The Treasure of the Brookhills Massacre, it’s to include a Geraldo Rivera–type hunt for the lost money. Meanwhile, Maggy’s business partner in the coffeehouse Uncommon Grounds, Sarah Kingston, who owns Kingston Realty, is worried because someone is killing real estate agents. An underground room beneath the coffee shop, a secret tunnel, a missing real estate agent, Chitown’s entourage, and a gaggle of rich, spoiled “Brookhills Barbies” provide plenty of grist. Maggy’s boyfriend, county sheriff Jake Pavlik, supplies romance and support as Maggy’s penchant for being an “intermeddler” lands her in trouble again. This amusing, well-written entry should win Balzo more fans. (Dec.)