The Fruitcake Murders
Ace Collins
Abingdon Press, Oct 6 2015, $14.99
ISBN: 9781426771897
In 1926 Chicago, musing over his two children’s diverse
anticipation of the holidays with just a couple of days to Christmas; Jan
Lewandowski leaves his home to walk to his small candy making factory. On the way he looks into Lombardi’s Grocery
and Produce where his fruitcakes are on sale; only to find none on
display. Angrily he enters the store to
confront Lombardi but is greeted by the silence of the storeowner’s corpse. CPD arrests Lewandowski, who insists he is
innocent, but is executed for the murder of Lombardi.
Two decades later, WWII veteran CPD Detective Lane Walker investigates
the murder of Ethan Elrod. Chicago
Herald reporter Tiffany Clayton arrives at the scene to interview Mr. Elrod
only to learn from Walker he is dead. As
the cop and the journalist squabble over their history together, they
separately and at times very reluctantly join forces looking into the homicides
of several men; who have in common death by Lewandowski’s missing fruitcakes.
This quirky post WWII police procedural captures the essence of
the classic 1940s murder mysteries while also making a strong case against the
death penalty in the very state that analyzed its capital cases leading to a
moratorium and eventually repeal.
Although the leads’ incessant bickering gets old fast, for the most part
The Fruitcake
Murders is outstanding especially when the focus is on the
captivating converging cases.
Harriet Klausner
No comments:
Post a Comment