{"id":5394,"date":"2023-11-09T06:32:01","date_gmt":"2023-11-09T14:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5394"},"modified":"2023-11-09T06:32:01","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T14:32:01","slug":"kathleen-marple-kalb-the-stuff-of-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/kathleen-marple-kalb-the-stuff-of-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"Kathleen Marple Kalb: The Stuff of Murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Old Stuff #1<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s no secret I\u2019m a big fan of Kathleen Kalb\u2019s.\u00a0 The fact that her maiden name was actually Marple might be reason enough to love her, but she\u2019s also an incredibly adept and enjoyable cozy writer.\u00a0 She kicked off her career with an historical fiction series featuring an opera singer, but she\u2019s written various cozies, one based on her actual profession (radio host), one featuring a secret hit woman, and this latest one featuring historical society head and antiques expert Christian Shaw.<\/p>\n

Kalb\u2019s cozy heroines are usually juggling being a mother of young kids and in this case, Christian is a mom of Henry, and a widow.\u00a0 Christian has a great support system in her tiny Connecticut town, however, and seems to be managing her life pretty capably.\u00a0 The book opens with a movie shoot in the local synagogue, which is located in an old historic church.\u00a0 The movie is a remake of The Scarlet Letter<\/em> and the scene being filmed features the main character up in the pulpit delivering a fire and brimstone sermon.\u00a0 Unfortunately, during the sermon\/performance, the star falls out of the pulpit and dies of a head injury.\u00a0 Or is there more to it?<\/p>\n

Well of course there\u2019s more to it, this is a mystery novel!\u00a0 Christian is able to do something I always love in any mystery \u2013 bring her actual expertise to bear on the solution.\u00a0 In this case, her expertise, illustrated in different ways throughout the book, relates to the historical objects (the \u201cstuff\u201d of the title) that she\u2019s in charge of at the historical society.\u00a0 As it happens two of \u201cher\u201d objects \u2013 a bible and an antique pewter tankard \u2013 were used in the movie star\u2019s penultimate scene.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s helped in her sleuthing by none other than the handily single state\u2019s attorney, one Joe Poli.\u00a0 He\u2019s asking her things that relate to the investigation but it\u2019s clear to the reader and to Christian\u2019s friends that there\u2019s more going on here.\u00a0 The romance is gentle, and it\u2019s really the mystery part that\u2019s front and center.<\/p>\n

There are several reasons I\u2019m such a big fan of Kalb\u2019s writing.\u00a0 One is her way with specific, memorable characters; one is her sense of humor, and laser sharp societal observations; and one is her way with a tricky plot.\u00a0 You may think you know who the perps might be, but believe me, there\u2019s more to the story.\u00a0 The romance for me is a nice bonus.\u00a0 As far as cozies go, these books are pretty much top of the heap.\u00a0 Her voice, pacing and storytelling ability are just terrific.\u00a0 I can\u2019t recommend her books more highly. —\u00a0Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Old Stuff #1 It\u2019s no secret I\u2019m a big fan of Kathleen Kalb\u2019s.\u00a0 The fact that her maiden name was actually Marple might be reason enough to love her, but she\u2019s also an incredibly adept and enjoyable cozy writer.\u00a0 She kicked off her career with an historical fiction series featuring an opera singer, but she\u2019s … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1475,328,1474,410,1472,1276,1441,1473],"class_list":["post-5394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-connecticut","tag-cozy","tag-historical-society","tag-kathleen-marple-kalb","tag-level-best-books","tag-robin-agnew","tag-series-debut","tag-the-stuff-of-murder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5396,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5394\/revisions\/5396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}