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coming October 2008
Bean There, Done That:
A Maggy Thorsen Mystery
by Sandra Balzo
Severn, $27.95,
ISBN 978-07278-6653-0
What they're saying about
BEAN THERE, DONE THAT...
Read an interview with Sandra Balzo from About.com on Fiction Writing
Publishers Weekly:
At the start of Balzo’s spirited third Maggy Thorsen mystery (after 2007’s Grounds for Murder), Rachel Thorsen, the wife of Maggy’s ex-husband, Ted, shows up at Maggy’s Brookhills, Wis., coffeehouse, Uncommon Grounds, and confides she suspects Ted is cheating on her. When Rachel disappears and is later found murdered, Ted is the chief suspect. Since Maggy and Ted share a son, she feels compelled to help, despite her budding relationship with Sheriff Jake Pavlik. Convinced that Ted is the killer, the members of Rachel’s wealthy family spare no expense in trying to prove him guilty. It’s up to Maggy to find the truth, even if that means helping the man who dumped her.
An engaging sleuth, Maggy puts her own humorous, breezy spin on everything, from coffee lore to the colorful locals, in a cozy that will leave readers guessing until the end.
Kirkus Reviews:
Milwaukee coffee-shop owner Maggy Thorsen (Grounds for Murder, 2007, etc.) is as steamed as the milk in a venti latte when her ex-husband’s new wife asks for help proving what a faithless wretch he is.
Cute gal Rachel has a problem. She thinks that her dentist husband Ted Thorsen is cheating. So she asks Ted’s ex-wife Maggy for the old calendars she’s saved to see if Ted might have been cheating on Rachel with somebody else during the same two years he was cheating on Maggy with Rachel. Maggy’s none too pleased to be digging up old dirt. She’s moved on with her life and, with help from her partner Caron Egan and rainbow-haired barista Amy, runs Uncommon Grounds, where Brookhills County’s commuters and tennis moms snatch their daily caffeine fix. She’s even got something going with sheriff Jake Pavlik. But curiosity is an insatiable beast -- almost as bad as her sheepdog Frank -- and Maggy nurses a sneaking suspicion about Ted and his dental-school classmate Emma Byrne, who’s currently turning Sarah Kingston, Maggy’s best friend, into a Brookhills Barbie. So she agrees to meet with Rachel shortly before the second Mrs. Thorsen drops out of sight, leaving the first Mrs. Thorsen in a worse mess than the jumble left by Uncommon Grounds’ very own dumpster diver.
Balzo gives an old formula new life with crisp dialogue, complex characters and a puzzle that can’t be beat.
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