A Crossworder's Holiday by Nero Blanc

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
If crossword puzzles are your cup of tea -- or if there’s a crime-solving cruciverbalist on your gift list -- this special holiday hardcover is just what you’ve been looking for. It’s got five seasonal mystery stories, each with at least one crossword puzzle that illuminates the case, plus a bonus: a recipe for Hunter’s Pudding, a Victorian-era holiday favorite. Whether they’re on vacation or sharing the holiday season with friends, crossword editor Belle Graham and her husband, private eye Rosco Polycrates, cannot resist a challenging puzzle, and in A Crossworder's Holiday you’ll find puzzles that are really murderous with wordplay that’s sure to delight. The title story, “A Crossworder's Holiday,” tells of a romantic Nantucket getaway that is interrupted by a desperate antiquarian. In “The Proof of the Pudding,” murder interrupts holiday plans at an inn that’s famous for fine cuisine. A missing will in Pennsylvania Dutch country lies at the heart of the dilemma in “A Partridge in a Pear Tree.” In “Mum’s the Word,” Belle and Rosco help the authorities fill in the blanks on a final tip-off from a dead informer. A legendary mystery lies at the heart of the compelling conundrum in “A Ghost of Christmas Past.” As fans will know, Nero Blanc is a nom de plume for the talented husband-and-wife writing team of Cordelia Francis Biddle and Steve Zettler. Together they’ve crafted four previous volumes in this delightful series: The Crossword Murder, Two Down, The Crossword Connection, and A Crossword to Die For. Sue Stone

From the Publisher

From the author of A Crossword To Die For and The Crossword Connection-a wonderful new addition to the hit series.

"If crosswords are your puzzle of choice, you'll be delighted to meet [Nero Blanc]," says The Mystery Reader-and indeed, these unique crossword mysteries (with puzzles included) have already earned a large and enthusiastic following. Now, crossword editor Belle Graham and P.I. Rosco Polycrates star in five fantastic stories.

Publishers Weekly

Crossword buffs can curl up with Nero Blanc's Crossworder's Holiday, a collection of five Christmas-themed tales, each with its own crossword puzzle (answers in the back). Blanc is the pseudonym of husband and wife Steve Zettler and Cordelia Frances Biddle. In the best holiday spirit, they are donating a portion of the book's earnings to the St. Barnabas Mission in Philadelphia.

Kirkus Reviews

Crossword constructor Belle Graham and her private investigator husband Rosco Polycrates (A Crossword to Die For, 2002, etc.) travel to five cozy locations to enjoy a winter holiday-in this set of short stories that, in the silly tradition of Busman's Honeymoon, feature mysteries that intrude on the couple's vacations. Belle and Rosco must solve crossword mysteries while spending Christmas in Nantucket (Moby-Dick provides a vital clue), winter in Vermont at a bed-and-breakfast (a lover's triangle plus a bonus recipe for Victorian pudding), winter in Lancaster County among the Pennsylvania Dutch (Rosco must sort out samplers and crosswords to unravel a last will and testament), the New Year watching the Mummers' Parade in Philadelphia as they muse on gangsters and their nicknames, and Christmas at a Cotswolds estate where a wife and her gardener lover disappeared a century ago. Cleverly, if not always credibly, the conclusions to the stories are revealed in the solutions to the crosswords included with each one. Readers may solve them on their own-the narratives provide many clues-or rely on the completed puzzles at the end. Sadly, recondite vocabulary and recourse to the Oxford English Dictionary often substitute for characterization and wit. A generation ago, Stanley Ellin restively compared Golden Age detective fiction to crossword puzzles. Little did he know. The target audience for this volume are readers who can accept its highly artificial premise-mysteries solved exclusively by working out crossword puzzles-times five.

Product Details

• ISBN: 0641836430
  
• ISBN-13: 9780641836435
• Format: Paperback, 193pp
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
• Pub. Date: October 2003
• Edition Description: Bargain
• Series: Rosco Polycrates and Belle Graham Series, #4

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents