CAUGHT IN THE SNARE

Sixty-something local newspaper reporter Mimi Goldman investigates another suspicious death in the environs of New York state’s Chautauqua Institution in Pines’ 11th mystery-series installment.

Mimi is intrigued when she reads the obituary of Velma White, an elderly local lake-house owner who reportedly died in a “tragic accident.” Velma had been disruptive at a Chautauqua Institution concert just days before, Mimi recalls, by talking loudly on her cell phone. In a quick flashback, readers learn that young sheriff’s deputy Doug Tinsdale suspects that Velma’s deadly fall in her home may not have been accidental. His superior is initially dismissive, but an autopsy reveals that the death was indeed a murder. Mimi, aided by her nonagenarian pal, Sylvia Pritchard,assembles a list of potential suspects, which is quite long, given that Velma had four renters living in her house and was widely disliked. As intrepid reporter Mimi interviews and investigates with the help of Kate Marino—the Agatha Christie-reading, cannabis-smoking daughter of one of the renters—she also deals with new demands at her newspaper job and alarming health news from her husband, who’s away on business. Then a suspect goes missing, and Mimi uncovers a cash stash in Velma’s house that allows local police to draw out the killer. Former reporter Pines—who, like Mimi, was once a New York Post headline writer—brings plenty of enjoyable craft and flair to this Miss Marple-esque whodunit. The narrative is well-paced throughout, and its investigation is satisfyingly full of colorful suspects (one is a knife-skills teacher); it all culminates in a suspenseful showdown that will have readers, at least for a time, genuinely concerned about Mimi’s fate. It’s quite entertaining, as well as instructional, when Pines has her vibrant, elderly characters confer about the case during a series of lectures on aging at the Chautauqua Institution, a real-life summer resort/education center near Jamestown, New York.

Amusing amateur sleuthing with intriguing generational commentary.