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Puzzle Lady Mystery Books In Order

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Publication Order of Puzzle Lady Books

A Clue for the Puzzle Lady (1999)Description / Buy at Amazon
Last Puzzle & Testament (2000)Description / Buy at Amazon
Puzzled to Death (2001)Description / Buy at Amazon
A Puzzle in a Pear Tree (2002)Description / Buy at Amazon
With this Puzzle, I Thee Kill (2003)Description / Buy at Amazon
And a Puzzle to Die On (2004)Description / Buy at Amazon
Stalking the Puzzle Lady (2005)Description / Buy at Amazon
You Have the Right to Remain Puzzled (2006)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Sudoku Puzzle Murders (2008)Description / Buy at Amazon
Dead Man's Puzzle (2009)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Puzzle Lady vs. The Sudoku Lady (2009)Description / Buy at Amazon
The KenKen Killings (2011)Description / Buy at Amazon
$10,000 in Small, Unmarked Puzzles (2012)Description / Buy at Amazon
Arsenic and Old Puzzles (2013)Description / Buy at Amazon
Lethal Luncheon (2013)Description / Buy at Amazon
NYPD Puzzle (2014)Description / Buy at Amazon
Puzzled Indemnity (2015)Description / Buy at Amazon
Presumed Puzzled (2016)Description / Buy at Amazon
A Puzzle to be Named Later (2017)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Purloined Puzzle (2018)Description / Buy at Amazon
Lights! Camera! Puzzles! (2019)Description / Buy at Amazon

The Puzzle Lady Mysteries series is a series of cozy mystery and suspense novels written by one of the leading authors from The United States named Parnell Hall. This mystery series is comprised of a total of 8 books which were published between the years 1999 and 2016. All the books of this series feature the chief protagonist as Miss Cora Felton. She is described by author Hall as an eccentric old lady who has an obsession of playing with different kinds of puzzles. Whenever she is not be to solve any puzzle, her niece comes to her rescue. She is a school going girl named Sherry Carter and is actually the brain behind the various puzzles the Cora Felton develops. Cora Felton lives in the Bakerheaven city in Connecticut, United States, and contributes a daily column of puzzles and crosswords in one of the city’s popular newspapers. Author Hall has depicted Cora Felton as having the habit of poking her nose into other people’s business. Due to this, she always ends up landing in one or the other type of trouble. Therefore, her niece Sherry Carter has to come and help her get out of the various troubles every time. But, Cora Felton does not stop getting herself into different messes all the time. And of course, a number of these messes deal with murders, as is seen in many other cozy mystery series. Author Hall began writing the series in the year 1999 and in the same year he released its debut book titled A Clue for the Puzzle Lady. As of now, the series is still going on as he is working on the plot development of the next book in the series.

One of the best books published in the series is titled as ‘Stalking the Puzzle Lady’. It was released by the Bantam Books in the year 2005. The story of this book opens up by showing Cora Felton as a lady who appears to be the favorite grandmother of everyone. But, bespectacled and white haired Cora likes to smoke, gamble, swear, etc. She seems pretty dodgy when asked about how many husbands were there in her past life. The long suffering niece of Cora Felton, Sherry Carter feels greatly amused when she hears Cora say that she has become tired of living with a lie. Cora Felton gets inspired to become suddenly honest with her reality of her past life due to a promotion by the Granville Grains. They decide to feature Cora on the bus tour of the television shows in which she appears personally. On this tour, the Puzzle Woman is not able to think about anything that she would not like to do, except deciding to quit smoking. She makes frequent visits to the supermarkets and buys the newly arrived superior quality corn toasties for her large group of fans.

But, someone tries to prevent her from going there and plants a knife at the front door of her car attached with a crossword puzzle. As always, Sherry Carter helps Cora solve the crossword puzzle. However, she seems unable to decide whether that enigmatic message was a love note or a threat, or even worse, both. In spite of the obstacles in their path, Sherry and Cora must carry on with their road show. They are followed by a group of makeshift television crew members, including an abrasive director, a producer, having a bad hair piece, a couple of overgrown child actors having the problem of adults, a highly ambitious publicist, etc. Along with these people, a number of other uninvited guests also throw themselves in during the show. One of them includes a munchin who seems to have a crush on Cora Felton since her high school days. One of the other guests is the abusive former husband of Sherry husband. Seeing such a huge gathering for the show, Cora realizes that the trip is indeed going to be a hectic one. She just hopes that a murder does not take place. Both Cora and Sherry prepare themselves to deal with the worst situation.

The next book written by author Hall in the series is titled as ‘You Have the Right to Remain Puzzled’. The Bantam Books was once again the publisher, which released this book in the year 2006. In this book, author Hall has depicted the fight between Cora Felton and another famous crossword creator named Benny Southstreet. At the start of the story, Benny Southstreet is shown as a small time hustler having a big time gift of constructing some of the most interesting crosswords. He lays the accusation on Cora Felton that she stole one of his well known creations. Cora feels that his accusation has no base and thinks that Benny has mistaken her for someone else. But, she receives a great shock when her own lawyer files a suit against her for plagiarism. Later, Benny is discovered dead and Cora Felton is charged with his murder also. At the center of this matter is the great lie that Cora Felton has been living for so many years. For all these years, she has assumed the public face of the publicity shy Sherry Carter, who designs and publishes the crossword puzzles under Cora Felton’s name, or the Puzzle Lady.

Now, it seems that the cruciverbalist paths of Benny and Sherry had crossed recently, which has resulted in the incriminating conundrum. Cora was already having her hands full with the jitters of the wedding engagement of Sherry Carter as well as solving the nasty fight over the case of disappeared antique chairs. And now, she is loaded with solving the ultimate mystery of Benny Southstreet’s murder also. Cora wonders whether she will be able to keep her identity secret and not lose her life at the same time. All the evidences seem to be going against her and to add to this difficult problem, Cora Felton learns that there someone out in the open who wants to remove her from this world quickly. In the end, Cora feels that she is facing an ultimate riddle of life that does not appear to have any answer. But, in the middle of all this drama, there is one thing that seems good for Cora. And that is her smart and sharp minded niece Sherry. Just like all the previous books written by Parnell Hall, this book too was well appreciated by one and all. It went to become very popular in a short time after its release. This boosted the confidence of author Hall and he eventually came up with a few other popular books in his writing career.

Book Series In Order » Characters » Puzzle Lady Mystery

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