Memories Are Murder-Lou Allin

Memories Are Murder
Lou Allin
Napoleon & Company: Rendezvous Crime
ISBN: 9781894917339

Northern Ontario realtor Belle Palmer rents a place to her former boyfriend (from when they attended Scarborough Collegiate Institute in Toronto) field research zoologist Gary Myers, who is studying the adaptability of elk recently released in the wilderness. The Brock University professor apologizes for using her as his “beard” back in school when they dated fourteen times and he failed to kiss her until she forced the issue on event ten.

When his “secret” partner murder-mystery author Malcolm “Mutt” Malloy arrives to join Gary, he cannot find him. Mutt and Belle look for Gary only to locate him dead having apparently drowned near his research camp. Mutt and Belle organize Gary’s notes only to conclude key items are missing; the cottage he rented from Belle had been broken into and his camera and laptop stolen. Soon afterward, Mutt is almost killed by carbon monoxide poisoning and someone tries to murder Belle. After finding an article Gary had on poisoning, Belle returns to the spot where she and Mutt found his corpse only to flee into the wilderness to escape from a killer.

The latest exciting Belle Palmer amateur sleuth (see NORTHERN WINTERS ARE MURDER, BLACKFLIES ARE MURDER and MURDER, EH?) is an entertaining Northern Ontario whodunit. The heroine has no plans to interfere with the police investigation into the death of Gary, but she and Mutt become embroiled by simply trying to dot he right thing with the late professor’s notes. Readers will appreciate the wild a long way from Toronto and not just in kilometers, but the murder mystery belongs to the brave realtor and her new partner as innocence is no excuse when someone wants you dead.

Harriet Klausner