Norway to Hide-Maddy Hunter

Norway to Hide
Maddy Hunter
Pocket, Nov 2007, $6.99, 304 pp.
ISBN: 9781416523802

It is time once again for travel escort Emily Andrews and her group of senior citizens to embark on another tour of a foreign country. They are traveling to Scandinavia concentrating on Finland and Norway. Emily’s fondest hope is this trip proves to be no “Passport to Peril”; meaning no dead bodies to deal with especially since her ex-husband Jack (now Jackie after a transgender operation) published her book, which is ranked and rated on Amazon.

The Iowans are on the Midnight Sun Adventure tour with a group of Floridians senior citizens, who live in the affluent gated community Hamlet. The two groups don’t get along but even Emily is surprised to find the leader of the other Hamlet group Portia Van Cleef murdered, strangled by a fish and plum necklace. At first Jackie is the prime suspect because she threatened her with violence but the police can’t hold her because there is no evidence and others had a motive to kill her. When another Hamlet is killed, a Pulitzer prize winning reporter, Emily believes she needs to clear her group so she decides to investigate. Everyone wants the killer caught because the travel group doesn’t want to keep looking over their shoulders for a murderer.

Maddy Hunter writes a riveting who-done-it that will appeal to armchair travelers and readers who like a meaty cozy plot with no blood and guts flowing. The heroine has not had a good time on this trip as she deals with cranky travelers, a despondent writer who was totally obsessed with the numbers concerning her book, long distance wedding plans that have to be changed because a twister destroyed the place she was going to get married. Oh yes, she needs to find the killer to salvage what is left of the trip. The humor spread out throughout the storyline is used as a tension reliever.

Harriet Klausner