Mrs. Kaplan Mysteries

Combining the classic charms of Agatha Christie with the delightful humor of M. C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin novels, Mark Reutlinger's Mrs. Kaplan mystery series returns as a notorious crank meets an untimely fate. Yom Kippur is a day of reflection and soul searching. But at the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors, Vera Gold misses this opportunity to atone for her many sins when she up and dies. Indeed, Vera was such a pain in the tuchis to all those around her that when her sister claims Vera was deliberately poisoned, the tough question isn't who would want to kill her-but who wouldn't?

You don't have to be Jewish to love Rose Kaplan, the sharp-witted senior sleuth in "Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death," and her loyal sidekick Ida. You just have to love a geriatric mixture of murder, mystery, and laugh-out-loud humor, Holmes and Watson with a touch of Lucy and Ethel (and the occasional Yiddish curse). Mrs. K wins the honor of preparing her famous matzoh ball soup for her retirement home's Passover seder. But when Bertha Finkelstein is discovered face down in her bowl of soup and Mrs. K is accused of causing her death, well, things turn really meshugge. It's up to Rose and Ida to make like detectives and discover who really killed poor Bertha, an adventure that, in the words of best-selling mystery author Rita Mae Brown, is "Too deliciously funny!"

Rose Kaplan and her sidekick Ida are at it again. It's the holiday of Purim, and almost everyone at the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors is in costume for the Purim play. All except one, who will instead have to be fitted for a shroud. Once again, "Mrs. K" and Ida are called upon to solve the puzzle of a mysterious death at the Home. Described by Chanticleer Book Reviews as "at times more Lucy and Ethel than Holmes and Watson, with a soupcon of Miss Jane Marple," these geriatric amateur sleuths will keep you laughing, guessing, and maybe even learning a bissel Yiddish!