MISS BUTTERPIG MURDER by Leslie Langtree

Fiction, Cozy Mystery, Merry Wrath Series

5*****

Blurb: There she is! Miss Butterpig of Who’s There… Everyone in ex-CIA agent turned Girl Scout leader Merry Wrath’s home of Who’s There, Iowa is thrilled when The Miss Butterpig Pageant for middle school girls comes to town! Okay, so the most thrilled people are the pageant moms, but there are girls in Merry’s troop who can’t wait to compete as well. In fact, girls Merry has never met before come out of the woodwork—like a poetry-writing goth, a Russian bodybuilder, and a baton-wielding kid whose ponytail may be a bit too tight. There she is, your middle school, um, ideal… Merry and her friends, Kelly, Hilly, Kevin, and the Hamlets, are tapped to be judges, and everyone is getting excited for the big event. What could go wrong…other than one of the pageant moms being found dead in the alley behind the theater, moments after trying to influence the judges on her daughter’s behalf? She’s the smartest of the smart, she’s walking on air… Between dealing with Russian gangsters, most of her troop competing as budding beauty queens, a Wagnerian operatic goose, and several overzealous pageant moms, Merry has to solve this murder quickly, so the show can go on and Miss Butterpig can be crowned! She’s Miss Butterpig, Who’s There!

THOUGHTS: I don’t know if the author has as much fun writing these stories as I do reading them, but she should. They are so inane, so silly, and unbelievable. In most cozy mysteries, we usually have a sweet little hometown (or community building), with credible characters, and a believable plot. Not in Who’s There, Iowa. This town is populated by the silliest of people. A 13-year-old mayor (and her young teen aides), a deputy who eats his way through a grocery store’s worth of food every day, the deputy’s four hamster deputies (who have uniforms and everything), a young teen who is so… adept at hacking phones, is connected with various mobs, and has more skills than most spies, a CIA assassin, and the main character, Merry, who is an ex-CIA spy, married to the town police chief, and leads a group of eight girlscouts who I would be very wary of.

In this story, there is a pageant for middle school girls (and a goose!) and Merry, the always-hungry deputy, the assassin, and Merry’s best friend Kelly are the judges. Things are definitely crazy from the get-go and get even more so when one of the pageant mother’s ends up dead in the alley. There are a lot of suspects as the mom was definitely not liked, and it’s up to Merry and her gang to figure out who the perp is.

Don’t look for seriousness in these stories. As stated above, they are unbelievable, but fun. If you need some silly laughter in your reading, pick up this or any one of the Merry Wrath murder mysteries. And be prepared to laugh – or groan.

Recommended.