Murder Among the Cornstalks by Jody Chaffin
A Table Rock Lake Word Search Mystery, #2
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Cozy Mystery, Holiday, Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by AstilbeA field full of witnesses. Not one of them saw a thing. 48 word searches to the truth.
On Halloween night, a hundred people from three counties walked the haunted corn maze out on the Flat Creek bottoms. At first light, somebody found Shane Merrick in the uncut corn — the equipment operator who turned up in March looking for work, got hired off a handshake, and was leaving the day the maze closed. The sheriff’s office worked the case on people who had already gone home. Retired biology teacher Eleanor “Nell” Ashworth spent that whole evening at the ticket table. She is new here, and she is the only one still asking the questions the county is content to leave alone.
But this time, the detective is you.
Each chapter hands you a scene and a word search. Solve the puzzle, and the leftover letters reveal a hidden clue — a suspect cleared, a motive exposed, a small hard fact nobody thought to write down. Track them across forty-eight puzzles and you will be ready to name the killer, the motive, the means, and the place before Nell does.
Six suspects. One night nobody can account for. A verdict only you can reach.
Fear comes in many forms.
The corn maze setting as Halloween approached was perfect for this murder, especially given Shane’s weak and temporary ties to the Persimmon Bluff community. I’ve often wondered what happens to people who constantly travel for work and who die while far away from the place or places where they grew up. This tale gave one sad but realistic possibility of how such lives end up being concluded after the worst happens.
It would have been helpful to have a little more development for the ending, especially considering how few clues were shared earlier on that the plot was moving in that direction. I thought it was a creative approach to this murder mystery, but I also would have liked to see the characters discuss why the murderer wasn’t following certain safety protocols involving outdoor activities in the autumn that most people who live in rural areas are taught from a young age. This omission felt a little odd to me, although I would have gone for a full five-star rating had the narrator explained it better as it definitely was a unique twist.
I enjoyed getting to know the permanent residents of this town a little better than I did in the first instalment of this series, and I’m hoping this trend will continue in the future. While everything in it definitely can be read as a standalone novel from what I’ve observed so far, fans who follow the mysteries in chronological order will be rewarded by small moments of character development that new readers might not notice.
Murder Among the Cornstalks made me yearn for the scariest time of year.
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