Toby Bromberg
Domestic mysteries are an extremely popular subgenre and Leslie Meier’s are among the best. Lucy Stone is immensely likeable and her reactions to situations, her relationship with her friends and family all ring true. This, combined with a well-plotted mystery, makes for an irresistible read.
— Romantic Times
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Despite all her volunteer work and family responsibilities, not to mention her part-time reporting job for her local paper, valiant Lucy Stone manages to maintain her poise in her seventh busy outing (after Christmas Cookie Murder). For Lucy, escorting a preschool field trip to a turkey farm, baking pies for charity or entertaining her husband's difficult clients and son's college roommate for Thanksgiving dinner is all part of her routine in rural Tinker's Cove, Maine. For Native American Carl Nolan, life is full of conflict, whether with his boss, the board of selectmen or the local museum's anthropologist. As Thanksgiving approaches, Lucy covers a town meeting at which the main agenda item is whether the selectmen will support the Metinnicut Indian tribe's petition for recognition by the federal government. Approval would enable the tribe to build a casino on land belonging to Nolan's employer. The ink on that story is barely dry when Nolan's body, his head smashed with a priceless tribal artifact, turns up at the high school Thanksgiving football game. When Lucy accepts the challenge to solve the crime, she finds no lack of suspects. Meier clearly establishes her characters' motives early on, and portrays smalltown life both realistically and sympathetically. Sadly, the story loses some of its impact in a constant stream of minutiae that should leave Lucy, along with readers, gasping for breath and longing for a few minutes of peace and quiet. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|
Library Journal
Although much of her time is spent on family, fund-raising, and helping her best friend with day-care kids, Lucy Stone (Valentine Murder)--the sleuthing reporter of Tinker's Corner, ME--promises an elderly friend that she will find out who murdered a confrontational local Native American. Recent selectmen board meetings regarding the Metinnicut Indians have been getting out of hand. Most of the townsfolk believe that the Natives want federal recognition only so that they can open a casino, but the dead man thought otherwise. Lightweight, approachable prose; cozy, small-town ambiance; and a down-to-earth sleuth make this a good choice for most collections. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\
Kirkus Reviews
That acme of small-town American culture, Tinker's Cove, Maine, is pulling out all the stops for Thanksgiving. Not only is there the Boot and Mitten Fund's traditional pie sale, the traditional pep rally, and the football game between the Tinker's Cove Warriors and the fearsome Gilead Giants, but this year, there may be an Indian uprising as well: the remnant of the town's Metinnicut population has petitioned the Town Council for support in seeking federal recognition as a tribe in order to build a tribal casino, courtesy of Boston-based Mulligan Construction. When tribal leader Bear Sykes-flanked by Mulligan exec Jack O'Hara, tribal lawyer Chuck Canaday, and Andy Brown, whose turkey farm would become the site of the casino-raises the issue at a town meeting, he's shouted down by rival Curt Nolan, who sees gaming as an insult to the Metinnicut's heritage of environmental concern. But volatile Curt's outrage is cut short by a Metinnicut war club, a valuable artifact on loan to the pep squad from the Winchester College collection curated by Professor Fred Rumford. Curt's friends ask Tinker's Cove's amateur sleuth Lucy Stone (Christmas Cookie Murder, 1999, etc.) to find his killer. But Lucy has a more pressing mystery to solve: how to make a tasty, nutritious Thanksgiving dinner suitable for her diet-conscious teenage daughters, her ungrateful college-freshman son, his two vegan houseguests, and two total strangers from New York.
