Westport Public Library BOOK blog

There has been some interest expressed recently about reviving the Library's Usual Suspects mystery book discussion group. If you would like to see this happen as well, please contact Jane Murphy by either posting a comment to this blog or sending an e-mail and let her know whether you would prefer daytime or evening sessions.

And now on to the unusual detectives.

What should you wear to a meeting with a serial killer?

In Go to Helena Handbasket, our not-so-very-intrepid heroine, PI Helena Handbasket, has a real need to know.

She has found herself caught up in a case that has spiraled out of control to include not only the aforementioned serial killer but also a major jewel heist, car bombings and the FBI – which is truly remarkable, since the story takes place in the UK.

In this spoof of the crime novel, author Donna Moore pokes fun at every cliché in the genre, much as Ellis Weiner did in Drop Dead, My Lovely.

When Weiner’s PI Pete Ingalls comes to after being knocked unconscious by a pile of books in a Manhattan bookstore, all he remembers are the hard-boiled detective novels he's read. So he dons a fedora and sets himself up in the business.

Ingalls puts in a second anachronistic appearance in The Big Boat to Bye-Bye, which one reviewer called “A sophisticated, very funny pastiche.”