Cora Felton may look like everyone’s favorite grandmother.
But the white-haired, bespectacled Puzzle Lady swears,
smokes, gambles, and is even dodgy on the subject of how
many husbands she’s had. So it strikes her long-suffering
niece Sherry Carter as amusing when Cora announces, “I’m
tired of living a lie!”
The inspiration for this sudden burst of honesty is a
promotion by Granville Grains featuring the Puzzle Lady on
a bus tour of televised personal appearances. Cora can’t
think of anything she’d like to do less–except maybe quit
smoking–than travel the supermarkets of I-95 hawking the
new and improved Corn Toasties to her legions of fans. And
someone else mustn’t want her to go either, because
they’ve left a knife planted in her front door with a
crossword puzzle attached. But when Sherry solves the
puzzle she can’t decide whether the enigmatic message is a
threat, a love note, or– creepier still–both.
Like it or not, Cora and Sherry must take their show on
the road, along with a makeshift TV crew that includes a
smarmy producer with a bad hairpiece, an abrasive
director, an overambitious publicist, and two overgrown
child-actors with some very adult problems. Throw in a few
uninvited guests, including a roly-poly munchkin who’s had
an unrequited crush on Cora since high school and Sherry’s
abusive ex-husband, and you don’t need to be a puzzle
expert to know this trip is going to be murder!
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