Title: A Pain in the Tuchis, a Mrs. Kaplan Mystery
Author: Mark Reutlinger
Genre: Cozy mystery
Book Blurb:
Combining the classic charms of Agatha Christie with the delightful humor of M. C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin novels, Mark Reutlinger's Mrs. Kaplan mystery series returns as a notorious crank meets an untimely fate. Yom Kippur is a day of reflection and soul searching. But at the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors, Vera Gold misses this opportunity to atone for her many sins when she up and dies. Indeed, Vera was such a pain in the tuchis to all those around her that when her sister claims Vera was deliberately poisoned, the tough question isn't who would want to kill her—but who wouldn't?
Excerpt:
Once we were seated, Sol next to Mrs. K and me across from them, Mrs. K asked, “So Sol, what’s the problem? Is Lily still locking herself in the bathroom?”
Sol smiled and said, “No, not this time, Rose. This time she says she has left me.”
Now, I realize it’s not that unusual for a wife to leave a husband these days, or perhaps the other way around, but not usually after almost fifty years of marriage. But it happens.
“Left you?” says Mrs. K. “Didn’t you say she and her mother were just now in your apartment? And that her mother never leaves the apartment? Where did they go?”
Sol’s smile now was what you would call ironic. He said, “Go? No, you don’t understand. Lily is leaving me, but apparently I am the one who has to go. She says she will stay in the apartment. She and her mother.”
At least this is a new script for an old production. One way or the other, though, poor Sol seems always to be the victim.
“Let me get this straight,” Mrs. K said. “You say Lily is leaving you, but it is you who are leaving, because of Lily’s mother, who does not leave. Is that right?”
Now by this time, sitting and listening to this conversation between Sol and Mrs. K, I’m getting totally confused. But I’m patient, because I’m confident Mrs. K will somehow clear up the confusion so that even I will understand. If not, I shall go and have a cup of tea and wait for Mrs. K to come and explain it to me.
“Yes, that’s more or less the story,” Sol said. “Lily wants to leave me because she says I insulted her mother.”
“And did you insult her mother?”
Again the ironic smile. “Well, that depends what you consider an insult. I did call her a kvetcher, as she is complaining all the time; and maybe I did let slip an occasional a khalerye…”
“You wished the plague on her?”
“Not really; but, Rose, you don’t know what that woman has put me through.”
“What could a ninety-year-old woman do to you to make you, who I have never heard even raise your voice, say such things to her?”
Sol’s features changed so he was no longer smiling, even ironically. He obviously was thinking of all the sins of Lily’s mother.
“What could she do, you ask. I’ll tell you what she could do. She takes up the only bathroom in the apartment for hours at a time—I don’t know what she does in there, but I always find there enormous pieces of underwear hanging on the towel racks and shower rod—so that I actually have to go down the hall to the public restroom just to pish! Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. I mean to go to the bathroom.”
“Don’t worry, we’ve heard worse. Go on.”
“Well, she criticizes or complains about almost everything we do. Like she complains we do not keep kosher, which is true, but Lily and I have never kept kosher, and it was never an issue with us.”
“Well, I can understand that when someone visits who keeps kosher it’s difficult when the host does not, because—”
“No, no, you don’t understand. She complains we do not keep kosher, but she does not herself. She claims she would, but she cannot get kosher food where she lives. She says she should at least get kosher food when she visits us.”
That woman has chutzpah, I’m thinking.
“And does Lily also get upset at this constant kibitzing?”
“No, she gets upset with me for telling her mother to stop! And there’s more. Did you notice what our apartment smells like?” How could we not? “She cooks things that stink up our whole apartment, like borscht made from the beets. Or boiled cabbage. Or gefilte fish. I mean, I like to eat these things, but they should not be cooked in a small apartment like ours. Certainly not several times a week.”
“No, I can see your point,” Mrs. K said. I nodded in agreement. No one wants to have a farshtunken apartment, no matter how good the food tastes.
“The last straw was when she called me lazy, because I do not work. Rose, I am retired for ten years and have no need or desire to go back to work. But this crazy woman—this meshuggeneh—is making my life hell.”
“So was it your asking her to stop doing these things that made Lily tell you to leave?”
“Well, not exactly. Her mother was supposed to be staying with us for a few days, and now she’s been here almost a month. And all this time she’s been doing the things I’ve described to you. This morning, after she spent ten minutes criticizing what I was wearing—as if she was some kind of men’s fashion maven—I was fed up with it and I told her she will have to leave.”
“And that is when Lily told you to leave instead?”
“No, what she actually said was if her mother leaves, she goes with her. I guess I lost my temper and said ‘Fine. You can both go.’ Of course, I didn’t really mean it, but then Lily starts crying and wailing ‘Oy vey iz mir, where will we go? What will become of us?’ and, well, before I know it I am the one who is supposed to leave and Lily and her mother are to stay in the apartment with the borscht and boiled cabbage.”
At least he escapes the smell.
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What makes your featured book a must-read?
A Pain in the Tuchis combines mystery and humor with insights into Yom Kippur, the most important Jewish holiday, and life in a retirement home. You’ll even pick up a few Yiddish phrases (all translated, of course), including a choice Yiddish curse or two. But most of all, you’ll just have fun reading about Rose and Ida, who have been described as “more Lucy and Ethel than Holmes and Watson, with a soupcon of Miss Jane Marple.”
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Runs February 19 – February 25, 2025.
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Author Biography:
MARK REUTLINGER, Professor of Law Emeritus at Seattle University, is the author of the “Mrs. Kaplan” cozy mystery series. The other books (so far) in the series are Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death and Oy Vey, Maria!. He has also written the caper crime story Murder with Strings Attached and the political thriller/romantic suspense novel To Seduce a President, which will be released in April. Mark and his wife, Analee, live in University Place, Washington.
Social Media Links:
Instagram: @markreutlingerauthor
Twitter/X: @mark_reutlinger
BlueSky: @mreutlingerauthor1.bsky.social