In the Hall with the Knife by Diana Peterfreund
My rating: 4/5 cats
clue is my favorite movie of all time.
y’all can keep your highly esteemed oscar-winning period pieces and your obscure arthouse fillums—i’ll be over here watching this movie where the chick from the go-go’s and the dude from fear both get murrrrderrrred. in a house. with a weapon. <— no spoilers here!
when i first heard about this book, it was as though the heavens opened up and rained down jellybeans: a book based(ish) on my favorite movie, written by the lady who brought killer unicorns into our lives? yes and please. and THEN, when i walked into the ABA galley room at BEA to find A GIANT STACK of these just sitting there for meeeee (and, i suppose, other ABA members, but mostly just ME), oh how those jellybeans POURED.
much like the storm that stranded the characters in this book!
this is an all-new story, not a retelling of the movie, but all your favorite characters are here—in name, anyway, muppet-baby-style:
headmaster boddy,
beth “peacock” picach,
vaughn green,
sam “mustard” maestor,
finn plum,
scarlet mistry,
mrs. white,
and… orchid mckee.
i do not know why peterfreund decided to separate mrs. white from the others by making her an adult character and filling her role with some non canon gal, but i’m sure she had her reasons. (p.s. please tell me your reasons)
the plot here is no surprise—it is the plot of the movie and the point of the board game: there is murder! who has done it? and although the murder weapon is never in doubt (HINT: it is part of the title of the book!), other clue-weapons do pop up in the darndest places.
here are plenty of winky-nods to the movie, and there are secret passages
and secret agendas
and secret letters
and…secrets.
IS this the best locked-room mystery i have ever read? no. but DOES it explicitly reference the most iconic scene from the best movie of all time?
yes.
three and a half stars cats, rounded up, and i will continue happily with the rest of the series.
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i am very excited for this.
very excited.
