Pawpaw County, Indiana, is all atwitter about Ma and Peepaw Horton’s annual Chickenlandia Festival. The mood turns dark though when the Horton’s prize-winning rooster, Dewey, and his best laying hen, Ginger, vanish, leaving behind no clues except for a trail of tail feathers. Also missing: Gertie Wineagar, local sourpuss, and BBQ chicken cook-off queen. Amateur women sleuths, Ruby Jane (RJ) … Waskom and Veenie Goens, suspect Hiram Krupsky, Pawpaw County’s self-proclaimed Chicken Wing King, of master-minding the crime spree in an attempt to sabotage the Horton’s free-range chicken ranch. Follow the women detectives as they attempt to sort the good eggs from the bad in this humorous southern, small-town crime comedy. “Chickenlandia” is Book 3 in the women sleuths’ mystery series The Shady Hoosier Detective Agency, winner of three Best Humor Book Awards and two Best Cozy Mystery Awards.
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Over the top, outlandish, totally silly and SO MUCH FUN!
It is time once again for the annual BBQ chicken contest and the many years reigning champion, Gertie Wineagar, has gone missing, bringing her long suffering husband to tears.
This is a boon to Senior sleuths, Ruby Jane Waskom and Veenie Goens, who haven`t had a decent case in a while. They have been reduced to local gossip and spying on the neighbor`s antics for entertainment. Along the way, they discover that someone else`s prize chicken and rooster have disappeared, and other more minor crimes are being committed. Can this all be related?
I don`t want to give any spoilers, as this is a fast paced, page turning, clue filled mystery with personality. Far over the top personality.
You will laugh your way through even as you hold your breath wondering if these two super senior sleuths survive.
This book is the third in this wonderful series and, to my mind, the best so far. RJ and Veenie perfectly capture the spirit of old women who won’t just sit down, shut up, and fade away. The book is a delight to read with laugh out loud scenes familiar to women of a certain age who grew up in any mall town in the southern/midwestern US. The book builds on well-crafted characters introduced in the first two book, fleshing out their back stories without artifice. The writing is tight and the plot is cohesive. I love this author. She fills in a huge blank space in American literary history – putting older women right back in the fray instead of putting them peacefully out to pasture.
This book is a fabulous follow up to its predecessors. It starts off with two mysteries for our heroes RJ and Veenie to solve and quickly adds a third. The author brilliantly describes the setting of a small town, so much so that I expect to walk out my door and find the people of Pawpaw county. The story has twists and turns that you never would expect but they are all plausible and this draws you further into the life of Pawpaw county residents – especially RJ and Veenie. I love the antics and the way these ladies solve their mysteries. I picture myself sitting on their porches enjoying pie and chatting, riding in their old Impala and being nosy to solve a crime or two. You’ll enjoy this cozy mystery with a smile on your face- then you’ll want to read the others!
This is the third book of the Shady Hoosier Detective Agency. It is filled with tons of wit and laugh out loud moments.
Lavinia (Veenie) and Ruby Jane (RJ) are two senior PI’s, whose mode of transportation is a 1960 Impala are back solving mysteries. When they are hired to find a missing wife, they land a job looking for a missing prizewinning rooster, and favorite hen from Chickenlandia, a free range chicken farm. Ma Horton informs them that Hiram Krupsky, The Hoosier Chicken Wing King, has been after her and Peepaw to sell their farm to him. Hiram shows up at their office wanting to hire them because someone is stealing from his business. RJ and Veenie go undercover as employees and since no one asked if Veenie had a current driver’s license, she was assigned to Forklift duty.
What amounts to solving cases ends up in hilarious situations! Veenie is scared of chickens, but requires to run after one when it steals her dentures. RJ gets a makeover, and suddenly has unwanted attention from the males. RJ hasn’t dated since her husband, and he passed twenty years ago! Meanwhile, Veenie plays matchmaker. Great series!
I received an ARC by NetGalley via BooksGoSocial and voluntarily reviewed this book.
bookshelves: rural, situational-humor, verbal-humor, private-investigators, amateur-sleuth, senior-citizens, mysteries
I think this really was set in Southern Wisconsin! Crazy funny! RJ and Veenie have got to be the wackiest pair of amateur sleuth/private investigators to ever solve a mystery, but solve things they do. First there’s the missing wife and don’t forget the chickens! The publisher’s blurb is pretty good and no spoilers here, so just sit back and laugh yourself silly while they do the jobs.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Books Go Social via NetGalley. Thank you!
Yes, RJ and Veenie are at it again.
This third caper with our favorite senior snooping sleuths starts off with a missing person. Gertie Wineager wasn’t winning any popularity contests, but she was the reigning queen of the BBQ chicken cook-off – part of the annual Chickenlandia Festival.
The plot rapidly thickens when the prize-winning rooster and top laying hen go missing from Ma & Peepaw Horton’s – the actual Chickenlandia that the festival is named for.
Add in a rival egg laying operation, a chicken wing king, and Veenie’s intense distrust of chickens, and our gal pals are scrambling to find out what happened to Gertie the BBQ queen, Dewey the rooster, and Ginger the hen.
Oh…and then there’s Veenie’s forklift accident – and a dead body! Yikes!
Fear not, dear readers. By story’s end, the cluckers are back in their coop, and the reign of Gertie remains.
Who knows what trouble Veenie and RJ will find themselves in next? I can hardly wait to find out!
This is the most hilarious book. Fresh. Original. Surprisingly great. Don’t be scared away by the fact it features two old lady detectives. These old ladies are sassy and get the job done. Very real country characters with quirk and color! This is book #3 in the series and, also, my favorite as the characters develop. Read it and laugh. I did … a lot! Ladies of a certian age (50+) will appreciate the humor here.
Oh boy, more shenanigans from the old ladies at the Shady Hoosier Detective Agency. I’ve read books 1 and 2 in this humorous detective series and WAS still laughing at them when an ARC for Book 3, Chickenlandia landed in my Kindle. You don’t have to read the first two books to get into this laugh-out-loud southern comedy, but if you have read the first two books you’ll know that our wise-cracking senior sleuth, Ruby Jane, gets a chance to date Hiram, The Chicken Wing King, in this installment. In between she and her 71-year-old sidekick, Lavinia, try to chase down local chicken thieves and figure out who sent a cranky egg rancher named Cheaty Pants Pam to that great Chickenlandia in the Sky. The result is toooooo funny! I love-love-love this series and these wacky old lady detectives. Very original. Dive into this series – you’ll enjoy all the quirky mysteries that plague the odd and lovable residents of Pawpaw County.