Book Review-Dead On My Feet

Dead on My Feet

by Lynn Wingert

Category: Fiction / Mystery

113 pages; ISBN: 1893652114

All Claire wanted to do was putter in her garden and feed hot dogs to her German shepherd. The dead man who rang her doorbell apparently spoiled all plans of leisure.

So begins the debut of a new series by Lynn Wingert starring amateur sleuth Claire Maxwell, a freelance medical writer who appears to be more interested in sticking her nose in other people`s business than in the books she researches for her articles. Of course, when a wealthy local banker expires at her front door just as the chime fades, the mystery of his death does become Claire`s business. A strange one, too, since Claire never knew the man when he was alive.

Despite the objections of the local fuzz, who is also Claire`s brother (and who really listens to the police and/or family in these kinds of stories, anyway?), Claire grills the dead man`s family and acquaintances, finding legitimate motives for everybody but unable to single out anybody as the killer. Just when Claire starts to reconsider to keep her freelancing expertise to medical journals, however, a few surprise twists toward the end of the story lead Claire (and the readers) to a plausible, unusual conclusion.

Dead on My Feet is a good first effort for Wingert, who is scheduled (according to her bio) to release two more installments featuring Claire Maxwell. Claire likes to joke with her readers, maintains an awful diet, and appears almost childlike in her curiosity. Think Nancy Drew crossed with Rhoda Morgenstern. It is my hope, though, that Dead`s successors provide more story than this first outing — at only 113 pages, Dead on My Feet may come off to some as too brief, making perhaps a better short story.

Book Review-Dead On My Feet