Chickenlandia Mystery: Shady Hoosier Detective Agency (Book 3)

Daisy Pettles

Sep 2019 · Shady Hoosier Detective Agency Book 3 · Hot Pants Press, LLC

About this ebook

Pawpaw County, Indiana, is all atwitter about Ma and Peepaw Horton’s annual Chickenlandia Festival. The mood turns dark though when the Horton’s prize-winning rooster, Dewey, and his best laying hen, Ginger, vanish, leaving behind no clues except for a trail of tail feathers. Also missing: Gertie Wineagar, local sourpuss, and BBQ chicken cook-off queen. Amateur women sleuths, and lifelong gal pals Ruby Jane (RJ) Waskom and Veenie Goens, suspect Hiram Krupsky, Pawpaw County’s self-proclaimed Chicken Wing King, of master-minding the crime spree in an attempt to sabotage the Horton’s free-range chicken ranch. Follow the senior snoops as they attempt to sort the good eggs from the bad in this humorous small-town country crime comedy. Chickenlandia is Book 3 in the award-winning women's mystery series, The Shady Hoosier Detective Agency, winner of three Best Humor Book Awards and two Best Cozy Mystery Awards.

Ratings and reviews

This book is the third in this wonderful series and, to my mind, the best so far. RJ and Veenie perfectly capture the spirit of old women who won't just sit down, shut up, and fade away. The book is a delight to read with laugh out loud scenes familiar to women of a certain age who grew up in any small town in the southern/midwestern US. The book builds on well-crafted characters introduced in the first two book, fleshing out their back stories without artifice. The writing is tight and the plot is cohesive. I love this author. She fills in a huge blank space in American literary history - putting older women right back in the fray instead of putting them peacefully out to pasture.

Can't stop laughing at these two senior sleuths! Yes, RJ and Veenie are at it again. This third caper with our favorite senior snooping sleuths starts off with a missing person. Gertie Wineager wasn't winning any popularity contests, but she was the reigning queen of the BBQ chicken cook-off - part of the annual Chickenlandia Festival. The plot rapidly thickens when the prize-winning rooster and top laying hen go missing from Ma & Peepaw Horton's - the actual Chickenlandia that the festival is named for. Add in a rival egg laying operation, a chicken wing king, and Veenie's intense distrust of chickens, and our gal pals are scrambling to find out what happened to Gertie the BBQ queen, Dewey the rooster, and Ginger the hen. Oh...and then there's Veenie's forklift accident - and a dead body! Yikes! Fear not, dear readers. By story's end, the cluckers are back in their coop, and the reign of Gertie remains. Who knows what trouble Veenie and RJ will find themselves in next?

bookshelves: rural, situational-humor, verbal-humor, private-investigators, amateur-sleuth, senior-citizens, mysteries I think this really was set in Southern Wisconsin! Crazy funny! RJ and Veenie have got to be the wackiest pair of amateur sleuth/private investigators to ever solve a mystery, but solve things they do. First there's the missing wife and don't forget the chickens! The publisher's blurb is pretty good and no spoilers here, so just sit back and laugh yourself silly while they do the jobs. I requested and received a free ebook copy from Books Go Social via NetGalley. Thank you!

About the author

 

Daisy Pettles' humorous mystery series, the Shady Hoosier Detective Agency, set in fictional Pawpaw County, Indiana, won the 2019 Gold Medal as Best Humor Book from the Indie Reader, The Next Generation Indie Book Awards, and the American Fiction Awards. Prior to retiring and taking up writing she was a therapist and an Internet entrepreneur. The Chickenlandia Mystery is Book 3 in her humorous amateur sleuth series, which the Indie Reader describes as “Murder She Wrote meets the Golden Girls … where the fun is infectious.”