Book 21, 2021

[chez_jae]

A Tisket, A Tasket, A Fancy Stolen Casket by Fran Rizer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Wednesday night I completed the book A Tisket, a Tasket, a Fancy Stolen Casket, which is the first in the "Callie Parrish" mystery series by Fran Rizer. The main character is mortuary cosmetologist Calamine "Callie" Parrish.

Business has been slow at Middleton Mortuary, but when Callie finds a broken hypodermic needle in the neck of a drowning victim, her life suddenly becomes more exciting. Now the police are treating Bobby Saxon's death as a murder, two widows are vying for the insurance policy, a business rival of Bobby's thinks his death was staged and that he's still alive, and someone steals the casket without realizing that Bobby's body has been sent for an autopsy.

Callie's non-existent love life suddenly perks up, too, as she's now dating a doctor and still lusting after an old high school crush. However, someone thinks Callie knows too much, and she begins receiving threatening messages. If she can't figure out who killed Bobby, Callie may end up just as dead.

Overall, this was cute and fun. Callie is an engaging character, if not always the quickest on the uptake. I didn't care for either the doctor or Nick as a love interest, and I really didn't care for Callie's BFF, Jane. In addition, the author needs to research how life insurance and marriage licenses work.

1. No insurance company would ever EVER let someone list the beneficiary as "my legal wife". I would know; I worked for a life insurance company. Even something like "Mrs John Smith" would not be accepted. The beneficiary's name and relationship to the insured must be explicitly specified, as in "Betty Smith, spouse".
2. You cannot obtain a marriage license without providing the exact date your previous marriage(s) ended, whether that be by death or divorce. Some states/counties require actual proof. Therefore, Bobby would not have been able to marry Betty if his divorce to his first wife had not been finalized...unless he lied about being married before, but such was not the case in this book.

These things are simple enough to research, if only authors would put in the effort. Egregious errors like that throw me out of the narrative.

Favorite lines:
♦ It is my opinion that testosterone dictates men's actions a whole lot more than estrogen does women's anyway.
♦ If cleanliness is next to godliness, I'm in a world of trouble. My biggest problem with cleaning is that I'd rather read mysteries.

This probably deserves a 3 1/2, but I'll bump it up to 4.