A Basket Case (Maddie Sparks Mystery Series)
by Lesley A Diehl
About A Basket Case
A Basket Case (Maddie Sparks Mystery Series)
Cozy Mystery
2nd in Series
Setting - Upstate New York
Publisher: Camel Press (November 12, 2024)
Paperback: 250 pages
ISBN-10: 1684922208 /
ISBN-13: 978-1684922208
Digital ASIN: B0D4MWFWSP 
Maddie Sparks believes she has found the perfect balance in her life-Zack, the man she loves, a book she loves writing and volunteer work at a local museum with a granddaughter she adores. An old flame from Zack's past arrives and drives a wedge into Maddie and Zack's romance, her writing stalls and someone murders the museum's director just as the museum is about to return a collection of Native American artifacts to the Onondaga and Oneida nations. Standing over the dead body of the museum director is an Indigenous man from neither group who insists one of the baskets in the collection belongs to his family. The authorities believe he is the killer, but Maddie does not. With her love life on hold, Maddie and her granddaughter set out to identify the killer, but their search reveals thefts at the museum and a two-hundred-year-old family secret that is the key to the motivation behind the killing. When Maddie uncovers the history behind the feud over the basket, she knows the identity of the killer, making Maddie his next target.
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About Lesley A. Diehl
Cows, Lesley learned growing up on a farm, have a twisted sense of humor. They chased her when she herded them in for milking, and one ate the lovely red mitten her grandmother knitted for her. Determining that agriculture wasn’t a good career choice, instead, she uses her country roots and her training as a psychologist to concoct stories designed to make people laugh in the face of murder. Unusual protagonists appear in many of Lesley’s works including Desdemona the crime-fighting potbellied pig, a hobo turned county sheriff and Lesley’s zany back-home-on-the-farm relatives (
The Killer Wore Cranberry, all six anthologies). She is the author of several cozy mystery series (
The Eve Appel Mysteries, Laura Murphy Mysteries, The Big Lake Murder Mysteries, and her newest,
Maddie Sparks Mysteries, featuring a senior sleuth and her rescue cat). Her cozy mysteries have won several Readers’ Favorite Awards and a short story
Sleuthfest Award. Find out more at
www.lesleyadiehl.com.
Review:
4 stars!
Intriguing double mysteries and complex personal
relationships combine for a compelling story.
A Basket Case is the second book in author Lesley A.
Diehl’s intriguing Maddie Sparks Mystery series. Still, newcomers to the
series can easily pick up, catch up, and enjoy it as an introduction or
standalone. When a director at the museum where Maddie’s granddaughter is
completing a college internship and she is volunteering is murdered right
before completing the turnover of Native American artifacts to local tribes, Sara’s
boyfriend’s father, a well-known Native American activist and a claimant to one
of the museum’s holdings is accused of the crime. Maddie, convinced he didn’t
do it, enlists her defense attorney son, Richard, to represent the man in the
white justice system and her love interest, former local sheriff Zack Montgomery,
to investigate and find the real killer.
Maddie and Zack had grown serious and close over the summer;
however, when he returns from a trip to visit his adult daughter, Amy, he shows
up not only with her but with Mary Sanders, a woman with whom Zack apparently
had a long history, one Amy has decided he should rekindle. Maddie is stunned
when Zack bows to his daughter’s wishes and moves his things from Maddie’s
place into the B&B where Amy and Mary are staying. Knowing Amy is fighting
a battle with drug addiction and needs her father’s support, Maddie tries to understand
his actions and, though heartbroken, goes along with the situation. Maddie and
Zack’s interactions are awkward and hard to watch unfold, especially with Mary
stirring the pot every chance she gets. Zack comes across as weak and indecisive
in his handling of his relationships, but he’s being torn apart by his need to
be there for his daughter and be with the woman with whom he’s already fallen
in love. His blindness to Mary’s toxicity and lack of the skills his daughter
needs goes on way too long, and there are consequences.
The situation at the museum is also more complex than
originally imagined. There is evidence of a very toxic work environment with ongoing
incidents of harassment, racism, and misogyny, and pieces from the museum’s collections are
suddenly going missing, with forged lookalikes left in their place. Sara
discovers the discrepancies and shares her concerns with her grandmother, but
their knowledge may have put them in the crosshairs of a killer. Although clues
are hard to come by, Maddie and her friends are able to piece together enough
plausible hypotheses to conduct an investigation, though with so much going on
in the story, their efforts were scattershot for much of the book. The difficulties
in the various personal relationships really distracted everyone: Maddie, Zack,
and even Sara, who had to deal with her protective parents and being in a mixed
race relationship. However, red herrings come and go as plot twists complicate
an already intricate case but guaranteed my attention and entertainment until
the final resolution.
I recommend A BASKET CASE to cozy mystery readers,
especially those who enjoy a more mature set of sleuths, strong female protagonists,
relationship-heavy plots, and behind-the-scenes looks at museum operations.
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