Book Review: One Dead Under the Cuckoo's Nest

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

One Dead Under the Cuckoo's Nest     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Lori Avocato
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Woman Main Character   Humorous   Private Investigator
Series: Pauline Sokol # 3
Avon, Oct 2005, $6.99

Former nurse Pauline Sokol is enjoying her birthday party with her parents when the mysterious Jagger, who she has worked with before, shows up claiming he needs her help. He wants Pauline, a Scarpello & Tonelli insurance fraud investigator, to assist him in escorting Mary Louise Huntington to the Cortona Institute of Life mental institution near Hartford, a facility run by nuns; Jagger insist that the escort must be a nurse.

At the same time her sleazy boss Fabio dumps a psychiatric fraud case on her lap while he goes to gamble at the Mohegan Sun Casino. The two simple cases collapse when the nuns take Pauline in as their patient. No one including Jagger bails her out and she fails to prove to the Sisters that’s she is sane. So rather than mope, she begins sleuthing only to learn other patients have been abducted and committed to this institution. However, the fraud turns ugly when murder occurs, but Pauline refuses to walk away as she has befriended some of the innocent victims.

The third Sokol insurance fraud mystery (see A DOSE OF MURDER, THE STIFF AND THE DEAD), ONE DEAD UNDER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, is a terrific tale. Pauline is not only at her courageous best, but her family, the mental institution patients, others and especially Jagger add depth and to a degree eccentricity to the exciting story line. Lori Avocato writes a fabulous mystery starring a delightful protagonist and a horde of supporting players who together provide a fine who-done-it reading experience.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner