Ice cream parlor owner Tally Jones finds herself going to
college to keep an eye on her niece after a graduate
student is murdered at the annual Honor's Day celebration.
Alice is the unfortunate person to discover the body of
Bryan Campbell, and Tally's protective instincts kick in
when suspicion initially falls on Alice.
It isn't long before a campus professor falls under
suspicion. Bryan had a pending sexual harassment charge
against English professor Emily Clowper. Emily's suspicious
death has Tally donning a backpack and joining Alice on
campus. She discovers Bryan wasn't a stand-up member of the
faculty and many people had a reason to kill him. Figuring
out the cryptic words spoken by Emily just before her death
may provide the missing piece to the puzzle.
SCOOP TO KILL by Wendy Lyn Watson is a clever,
amusing small-town mystery. Set in Dalliance, Texas (you
know there's going to be a good time had by all in a town
named Dalliance!), Ms. Watson infuses a warm, folksy feel
in the story with well-chosen language that paints a vivid
picture for the reader. Tally is a first-rate amateur
sleuth; the relationship she has with her family is
heartwarming. It's a well-crafted mystery, and readers will
be as torn as Tally as she works to decide between the two
men in her life. SCOOP TO KILL is the latest in the Mystery
a la Mode series.
During the local college’s annual Honor’s Day festivities, a
graduate student is killed. When the English professor
suspected of his murder also meets an untimely end, Tallulah
Jones steps out from behind the counter of Remember the
a-la-Mode to clear the professor’s name-before anyone else
gets put on ice…
Excerpt
It may be blasphemy to say it here in Texas, but if William
Travis and his men had defended the Alamo the way Bree
defended Alice that day, General Santa Anna would have
scooted back to Mexico with his tail between his legs. I’m
telling you, Bree was a sight to behold: half naked in her
skimpy pink sundress, her hair teased seven ways from
Sunday, purple-painted toenails peeping from three-inch
high strappy silver sandals, and a look in her eyes that
could have brought a grown man to his knees.
If, that is, that grown man had been anyone other than
Detective Cal McCormack. He’d heard the call come in over
the scanner, that twenty-six-year-old doctoral student
Bryan Campbell had been bludgeoned to death, apparently
with an industrial-sized stapler, but he wasn’t on the
case. The victim, Bryan, was Cal’s nephew, his older sister
Marla’s boy.
Cal and I go way back, back to summer games of kickball and
capture-the-flag. We weren’t close anymore, but I knew Cal
McCormack as well as anyone. Laid-back, laconic, law-
abiding Cal. That afternoon in Sinclair Hall, though, I saw
a side of Cal McCormack I’d never seen before.
He was incandescent with fury.
"What the hell happened here?" he bellowed, towering over
Alice as she huddled in the shelter of her mother’s arms.
Bree angled her body between Alice and the colossal cowboy
and raised her chin to stare him in the eye. "Don’t you
take that tone with my child, Cal McCormack."
The Cal I knew would be chastened by a southern woman
asserting her motherly credentials, would have tipped his
hat (metaphorically speaking) and begged pardon. But this
new Cal spun like a force of nature.
"Back off, Bree," he barked. "Your child is covered in
Bryan’s blood, and she’s going to tell me why." He took
another ominous step, crowding Bree and Alice against the
wall. "Now."
I recognized the mulish expression on my cousin’s face.
Irresistible force had met immovable object, and nothing
good could come from that.
I will definitely be purchasing this book asap! I loved her first one, I Scream, You Scream -- a great read! I am sure this one will be just as good. I enjoy reading her books. (Peg Fragale 11:03am August 16, 2010)
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