Book Review: Icing Ivy

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Icing Ivy     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Evan Marshall
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Cozy   Cats
Series: Jane Stuart # 4
Kensington, Nov 2002, $22.00, 223 pp.

Jane and Ivy were roommates in college as well as best friends. When Jane needed a nanny, she employed Ivy’s daughter Marlene. When Marlene died, through no fault of Jane’s, the friendship was broken until two years later when Ivy visited accompanied by her boyfriend Johnny.

When Ivy lets it slip that she has no place to go for the holidays, Jane invites her former best friend to spend them with her and then go out with her to a writer’s treat at Mt. Munsee Lodge. Johnny shows up at the retreat but seems more interested in another guest then he is with Ivy. The last anyone sees of Johnny is a man with a gun chasing him into the nearby woods. Shortly after that Ivy’s frozen body is found in the snow, knifed to death. Knowing she won’t be able to live with herself if the killer isn’t found, Jane starts her own investigation not realizing that if she gets too close to the truth, the perpetrator will have no qualms about killing her too.

Fans of Winky the cat will be delighted to know that she is pregnant and gives birth to six kittens during the course of this book. The childish wonder Jane’s son exhibits at this miracle of birth is a joy to behold. The mystery itself is well drawn with so many suspects

that Jane, once Johnny is eliminated, doesn’t have a clue who did it. She has to go to motive and none of the possible perpetrators have one. Evan Marshall has written a fiendishly clever who-done- it, one that the heroine and the audience will work hard to figure out.

Harriet Klausner

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