The follow-up to Kiwi crime novelist R. W. R. McDonald's award-winning The Nancys will have you alternately gasping with shock-horror and giggling with 'inapprops' gags.
The Nancys, McDonald's debut novel, won the Ngaio Marsh Award last year for Best First Novel.
Tippy, Uncle Pike and Devon are t-shirted up members of their very own crime club, based on a mutual love of Nancy Drew books.
McDonald delivers in spades in this sequel; revisiting characters who have firmly become favourites - butch Uncle Pike, effeminate, neon-clad Devon, his boyfriend, our hero Tippy Chan (aged eleven, going on thirty), Duncan Nunn, the abhorrent, self-obsessed TV reporter, Lorraine, the equally abhorrent local newspaper reporter and Melanie Brown, who has let her beauty crown slip and her hair colouring grow out.
Add Bunny Whiskers the cat, (based on designer Bunny Williams) and an adopted dog and the madness is complete.
Can this lot get it together to solve another crime?
In this episode, Pike and Devon have returned to Riverstone, a fictional town somewhere near Dunedin, to buy and refurbish the murder-house made infamous in the first book.
While they are staying in a mouldy Airbnb so disgusting I could almost smell it, someone blows up the Town Hall and several citizens are caught up in the blast.
The evidence all points (a bit too easily) to Mr Tulips, a man everybody loved. So if he did it, how did he do it?
Smelling a rat in this 'done deal' The Nancys try to unravel Mr Tulips' motivations - remaining 'corporate' in their interrogations, and regarding everyone as a suspect - in true Nancy Drew fashion.
Underlying the main story is the thread of Tippy's father - the anniversary of which is looming, and about which Tippy has a lot of questions. Was there foul play involved there too?
While I found myself wishing Tippy was a bit older in this story, McDonald is aging her. She's becoming pretty independent and street-smart, and even has a go at driving (in a high-speed car chase, no less!).
The bright orange cover of Nancy Business clashes beautifully with the neon pink of the first book. It's a high-heeled shoe-in for this years' Ngaio Marsh Award nominations. #yeahnoir.
More
- Follow New Zealand Crime and Mystery Writing on Facebook
- Want more Yeah Noir? Try our New Zealand crime fiction list
- Our post about the Ngaio Marsh Awards
Add a comment to: Nancy Business is funny business