Book 35, 2018

[chez_jae]

Pay Dirt by Rita Mae Brown

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Last night, I finished the book Pay Dirt by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown. It's part of the "Mrs Murphy" mystery series, which features Postmistress "Harry" Harristeen and her cat, Mrs Murphy, as well as her corgi, Tee Tucker.

The small town of Crozet is atwitter when a biker roars into town, looking for a woman named Malibu. When the biker is found murdered, some speculate that he was at the epicenter of a drug deal gone bad. In the meantime, the town's residents are also worried about the dreaded Threadneedle virus, which is set to infect computers on August first. The local bank takes precautions, but two million turns up missing anyway. Later, the bank president is murdered while working late at night in an effort to fix things, and one of Crozet's own is arrested for the crime.

Harry doesn't believe Kerry is a murderer, and neither do Mrs Murphy and Tee Tucker. The animals find clues and work hard to get their human to notice them, while Harry speculates and bats ideas around with the people who come into the post office for gossip. When another murder takes place, the race is on to find a killer in Crozet.

Very good book, witty and charming, and I love the characters, both old and new. Drawbacks to the book are that there are too many povs used, and too many murders. Most mysteries have one death, but these seem to involve multiple murders. It's a small town! If people keep getting killed, there won't be anyone left. Also, the resolution, or rather, the motive(s) seemed confusing to me.

Favorite lines;
♦ "Motorcycles were invented to thin out the male herd."
♦ "Ten percent across the board if you make over one hundred thousand and five percent if you make under. Anyone making less than twenty-five thousand a year shouldn't have to pay tax. If we can't run the country on that, then maybe we'd better restructure the country..."
♦ "...I think that murder has to do with something deeper, something infantile. Underneath it all a killer is saying, 'I want my way.' Simple as that. They don't, they can't, even conceive that other people have legitimate needs that might be different and in conflict with their own. It's all me, me, me. Oh, they might dress it up and look mature, concerned, or whatever, but underneath they're infants in a violent, quivering rage."
♦ Humans give the cold shoulder. Cats give the cold body.

Overall, very good. Four stars:

****