Parnell Hall. A Puzzle in a Pear Tree. New York: Bantam, 2002. Print.

A Puzzle in a Pear Tree is one of a series of crossword puzzle mysteries featuring Cora Felton and her niece Sherry Carter. This clever “cozy” murder mystery begins as a Broadway washout director is directing both a high school production of The Sea Gull and some skits in the town of Bakerhaven’s Christmas pageant. The pageant’s pièce de résistance is a live re-enactment of the “The Twelve Days of Christmas” in which both ladies have small parts.

During a rehearsal the model partridge in the artificial pear tree prop has been replaced by an acrostic puzzle which warns that a leading lady is going to die. The police dispatch a deputy to keep surveillance on Becky Baldwin, the lead singer in the pageant. Only the person murdered turns out to be Dorrie, the high school senior who had the lead in The Sea Gull. She was killed while posing as Mary in a live nativity scene on the town green.

The local police arrest Sherry for the murder with the help of an officious but experienced British detective who happens to be visiting his daughter who lives with his ex-wife and who was best friends of the murder victim. Sherry does not even know the victim, though her family is prominent in town, but the police are convinced she killed Dorrie by mistake instead of Ms. Baldwin. In an ingenious plot twist, Becky Baldwin is also acting as Sherry’s defense attorney. Even the judge cannot figure that one out!

There are more surprises, including more acrostics, as Cora and Sherry try to prove Sherry’s innocence. More people die, but the story retains a lighthearted tone. There are enough clues that the reader might solve the mystery before it is solved in the book—and this one is not revealed until the very end. This reviewer did correctly identify the murderer with about fifty pages left, though I misjudged the killer’s motive. That was still a surprise.

Bakerhaven is supposedly a small town in western Connecticut. The nearest city is said to be New Haven. Even though it has haven in its name, we are told that the town in not on the coast. While the setting may not be as specific as the novels of Justin Scott or John J. Gilmore, the fact that the director used to work in New York City makes a Connecticut setting realistic, though it could be an American small town anywhere. I am familiar with the village of Bakerville in Litchfield County, Connecticut. While Bakerville is a little closer to Hartford than New Haven, a Litchfield County setting does seem most likely.

This is a cozy, character-based mystery. There are numerous jokes about the number of ex-husbands Cora has had. Like Chaucer’s wife of Bath,

Of remedies of love she knew perchance,
For she could of that art the old dance. (Prologue.477,478)

Still there is a streak of realism in the court scenes and the fact that not all the loose ends are tied up.