My Review
Jessica Fletcher is a great novelist and an experienced amateur detective. She loves bicycling around her small Maine town of Cabot Cove and traveling the world. However, after almost forty years, even she has an occasional accident.
In Snowy with a Chance of Murder, Jessica is on her way to a Caribbean cruise when she slips on her icy porch and tumbles head first down her steps. Suffering a concussion, a sprained right wrist and two sprained ankles, Jessica is stuck in a wheelchair and homebound with a nurse’s aide for several weeks.
While sitting at her front window trying to think of a plot for her next book, she spies curious happenings at the house across the street. She calls the police, who find that an out-of-towner is renting the house for two weeks. The next morning, the stranger is building a snowman in his front yard. Jessica realizes the snowman is anatomically correct and mooning her! Later, the stranger is found murdered and Jessica feels compelled to solve the mystery from her living room.
While it is disappointing to see the elderly superhero Jessica be injured, the setup of naughty snowmen sculptures is pretty funny. When Jessica is mooned by the first one, I thought that was a great way to respond to a nosy old lady. However, Jessica being portrayed as that nosy old lady didn’t feel authentic to her character. In the past, she was always compassionate and solved mysteries to help others. She wasn’t the type to call the police because a stranger was doing perfectly normal things across the street. Maybe the pain pills, or her concussion, are changing her thinking?
Despite my issues with Jessica’s actions, the mystery is still well written and enjoyable. It is always a treat to visit Seth, Mort and the Cabot Cove gang. The Bologna Boy subplot about a shoplifter was fun too. 3 stars.
Thanks to Great Escapes Book Tours, NetGalley and Berkley for providing me with an advanced review copy.
More About the Book
Murder, She Wrote: Snowy with a Chance of Murder
Cozy Mystery
60th in Series
Setting – Maine
Publisher : Berkley (March 18, 2025)
Language : English
Hardcover : 304 pages
In a nod to Rear Window, this newest entry in the USA Today bestselling Murder, She Wrote series finds Jessica Fletcher coping with an injury that leaves her homebound—and a murder just outside her window!
Jessica Fletcher has taken a nasty spill on the ice, leaving her in a wheelchair for several weeks. She tries to work on her latest manuscript but finds herself distracted by a new neighbor moving in across the street. There’s good reason for her to be distracted, because soon after unpacking his sparse belongings, Mr. Rymer is out in the front yard, building somewhat risqué (read: naked) snow sculptures.
While Cabot Cove debates whether the sculptures are a protected form of art or a public display of lewdness, someone starts destroying them at night. Rymer doesn’t seem upset. He just makes new ones. No need to get the police involved over a little snow, he says. Especially when there’s plenty more of it and a blizzard in the forecast.
The morning after the storm, Jessica looks out the window to see a new sculpture across the street—and the body of Mr. Rymer half-buried in the snow. Can Jessica catch a cold-blooded killer from her chair by the window?
About the Authors
Barbara Early earned an engineering degree, but after four years of doing nothing but math, developed a sudden allergy to the subject and decided to choose another occupation.
Before she settled on murdering fictional people, she was a secretary, a schoolteacher, a pastor’s wife, and an amateur puppeteer. She lives in Western New York State (Go Bills!), where she enjoys cooking, crafts, classic movies and campy seventies television, board games, and spending time with her granddaughters.
Before teaming up with Jessica Fletcher, she previously wrote the Vintage Toyshop Mystery series and the Bridal Bouquet Shop Mysteries (as Beverly Allen).
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Thank you for the review.