MARCH OF CRIME

The founding member of the Murder-by-Month club is at it again.

Mira James, who ekes out a meager living as a reporter, librarian, and wannabe private eye, can claim a more dubious distinction: every month since she arrived in Battle Lake, Minnesota, she’s found at least one dead body (February Fever, 2015, etc.), and her latest discovery really creeps her out. Her neighbor at the counter of the local diner is a life-size doll, one of many made by Ida Gilbertson of the Senior Sunset home. Trying to escape Kennie Rogers, the mayor known for her odd business ventures and eccentric wardrobe, Mira knocks the doll over and finds a dead woman inside. Police chief Gary Wohnt sternly warns her to butt out of the investigation. But with her outrageous octogenarian pal, Mrs. Berns, at her side, Mira can’t help but do a little sleuthing. Her romance with superhot Johnny Leeson is threatened by Mira’s inability to commit. Worried that he may become the next victim, she breaks up with him. The mayor, meanwhile, has started an intern program whose first member is a wealthy woman who’s assigned to the library. Her husband has a roving eye which may have alighted on the latest victim, who turns out to have been a part-time nurse at the Senior Sunset. Mira keeps meeting more weird characters: a young boy who offers to spy for her, a man in a coma at the nursing home who the residents think brings good luck to the trinkets they leave in his hand, and a loner who lives in a cabin off the grid. Even the mayor gets into the oddball competition with her latest brainstorm, phone sex with a strong Minnesota accent.

Earthy language, quirky suspects, and much related tomfoolery for those who like their comic mayhem painted in broad strokes.