Title: Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death
Author: Mark Reutlinger
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Book Blurb:
You don't have to be Jewish to love Rose Kaplan, the sharp-witted senior sleuth in "Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death," and her loyal sidekick Ida. You just have to love a geriatric mixture of murder, mystery, and laugh-out-loud humor, Holmes and Watson with a touch of Lucy and Ethel (and the occasional Yiddish curse). Mrs. K wins the honor of preparing her famous matzoh ball soup for her retirement home's Passover seder. But when Bertha Finkelstein is discovered face down in her bowl of soup and Mrs. K is accused of causing her death, well, things turn really meshugge. It's up to Rose and Ida to make like detectives and discover who really killed poor Bertha, an adventure that, in the words of best-selling mystery author Rita Mae Brown, is "Too deliciously funny!"
Excerpt
We continued our walking and I my counting and eventually we came to the window of the room we were supposed to search. This one was already slightly ajar, not what we expected for an unoccupied room, but definitely a good thing. Now it was time for Mrs. K to take out the little tool that Florence had made for her and use it to disable the thing that limits how far the window can be opened. I couldn’t really see how she fiddled with it, but in only about a minute the window was open all the way, leaving quite a large space for entering.
Now, of course, came the tricky part. One of us had to climb in. I had volunteered, although Mrs. K had not yet told me what we were looking for, but she insisted that it be her. “I am the one for whom this is important,” she had said before we came outside, “and I should be the one taking the biggest risk. I really do appreciate your help, Ida, and your offer, but I would not think of having you do the . . . the dirty work, as they say.” So I agreed, and now it was time for Mrs. K to climb in the window.
I set up the stepstool under the window and held it while Mrs. K stepped on it and leaned over the window ledge. Fortunately, there was a table of some kind in the room just under the window, on which were a few tchotchkes that could be moved aside, so Mrs. K was able to climb from the stepstool onto the table without too much difficulty. I will not describe what this looked like from my angle; suffice it to say it was not a pretty sight. But the important thing was that Mrs. K was in the room, having made almost no noise.
As Mrs. K told me afterwards, she was standing in the room feeling pretty good about herself, when, in the dark, she heard a loud snnaarkkk. I even heard it outside. You can bet that we both jumped! Mrs. K looked around with her flashlight, and what she saw was a man asleep in the bed and snoring! Or rather he was asleep on the bed, because he was naked, uncovered, and about eighty-five years old, as was the woman sleeping next to him. Who knows what they had been up to that wore them out enough to miss the movie. Mrs. K later said it felt like when a child might open their parents’ bedroom door and find them, well, in a compromising position. Then she thought for a moment and added, “At least he was not propped on his pillow smoking a cigarette.” God forbid!
But the more important fact was that we obviously had chosen the wrong room! The room we wanted was supposed to be unoccupied, and it was unlikely these people on the bed were, what do they call it, “squatters.” In fact, Mrs. K knew immediately just who they were, having seen enough—more than enough—before quickly turning off the flashlight. They were Max and Sadie Rinefeld, whose room was right next to the one we wanted. Like a schlemiel, I had miscounted the windows! Oy, I should have counted twice, like Florence did.
As you can imagine, Mrs. K could not get out of there fast enough. Although I had only heard the snoring, and I didn’t yet know any of the details, that was enough to tell me what had happened and that Mrs. K would be making as quick an exit as possible. Sure enough, within a minute at the most she had climbed back onto the table and was backing out of the window. This was another sight I do not wish to see again, but I did my best to help her down. Once she was safely out of the window, with just a small tear in her dress, we made our way to the next window and again sat down on the grass under it, to catch our breath and decide what to do next.
But what could we do, except get ready to burgle for a second time that night?
And in case you should be wondering, it was a long time before Mrs. K was again able to look either Max or Sadie Rinefeld in the pisk, in the face. Or in any other part.
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What makes your featured book a must-read?
Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death is a light-hearted cozy mystery, a fast and easy read, and the perfect book for an afternoon at the beach or an evening by the fire. It combines humor with suspense, mystery with human interest. In addition to discovering how Rose Kaplan and her best friend Ida (a senior-citizen Holmes and Watson duo) solve the mystery of the woman who expired face down in her chicken soup, the reader learns a bit about the celebration of Passover, as well as a few good Yiddish curses along the way.
Giveaway –
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Open Internationally.
Runs February 19 – February 25, 2025.
Winner will be drawn on February 26, 2025.
Author Biography:
MARK REUTLINGER, Professor of Law Emeritus at Seattle University, is the author of the “Mrs. Kaplan” cozy mystery series. The second and third books in the series are A Pain in the Tuchis and Oy Vey, Maria!. He has also written the caper mystery 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