When Geraldine Porter sets out with her granddaughter
Maddie to tour the neighborhood Halloween displays, they
are looking for inspiration for the haunted doll-house they
are going to create together. They find themselves in the
middle of a police investigation when the scarecrow on one
front porch turns out to be a bloody corpse.
Gerry and Maddie wait with the teens who discovered the
body until Gerry's nephew Skip, a local police officer,
arrives on the scene. Thinking her involvement over, Gerry
is content to let the police do their job, until a crafter
friend seeks her assistance. The scarecrow is her friend
Susan's brother, and Susan is convinced he didn't commit
suicide. Though the local cops are leaning in that
direction, Skip isn't sure of the conclusion and continues
the investigation.
Then Gerry and Skip discover the victim had ties to Gerry's
late husband, and she learns he kept some pretty
significant secrets from her throughout their marriage.
Determined to know the truth, and with a little help from
her precocious granddaughter, Gerry begins digging into the
life of the victim, and the life of the man she loved,
hoping to clear both of any hint of scandal before the real
killer strikes again.
MONSTER IN MINIATURE by Margaret Grace is in turns a
funny, thrilling and heartbreaking murder mystery. Gerry
Porter is a thoroughly likable amateur sleuth, determined
to get to the truth regardless the cost. Young Maddie is
laugh-out-loud entertaining in her efforts to be involved
and help solve the mystery, providing several of the
pertinent clues that lead Gerry and Skip in the right
direction. The mystery is well-plotted and the tying
together of the various loose ends is satisfying, making
this a difficult to put down page-turner!
For a
festive Halloween project, Geraldine Porter and her
granddaughter, Maddie, set out to create a multi-story
haunted dollhouse. But their holiday fun turns to fear when
a neighborhood scarecrow turns out to be a bloody corpse.
