Goodbye, Ms. Chips (Ellie Haskell Series #13)
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It’s back to school for plump girl turned Thin Woman Ellie Haskell!“The headmistress wants to see you.” Words to strike terror in the heart of any inmate of St. Roberta’s boarding school. Fortunately for Ellie, she is no longer a pudgy, wayward pupil but a happily married mother and interior designer with a beautiful home by the sea. Still, thanks to her success as an amateur local sleuth, Ellie has been summoned.GOODBYE, MS. CHIPSSt. Roberta’s needs Ellie’s help now that the former games mistress, Ms. Chips, has retired. Could Ellie please come back on campus and find out who has stolen the Loverly sports trophy—and is seeking to bring embarrassment to the school? Her less than rosy memories of being a student notwithstanding, Ellie cannot refuse headmistress Mrs. Battle’s entreaties. Soon she finds herself in the thick of boarding school life, where an apparent schoolgirl prank gives way to murder. “Engaging Ellie provides a peek at boarding-school charms and horrors while solving one of her more intriguing cases.”—Kirkus ReviewsPublishers WeeklyAt the start of Cannell's meandering 13th Ellie Haskell mystery (after 2007's Withering Heights), Ellie's dear friend Dorcas Critchley, the games mistress at St. Roberta's boarding school, asks the amateur sleuth to investigate the theft of the Loverly Cup, a trophy awarded annually by "Lady Loverly of the Hall at Upper Swan-Upping to the winner of the area schools' lacrosse championship match." A former "inmate" of St. Roberta's, Ellie returns to campus, where she's forced to rub shoulders with old classmates she would rather avoid. The suspicious death of Marilyn Chips, a retired coach whose skills enabled the school to retain the trophy for many years, makes the loss of the Loverly Cup, if not irrelevant, certainly less important. Ellie and her housekeeper, Mrs. Malloy, enchant as always, though the student characters, in particular Ellie's precocious detecting pal, 14-year-old Ariel Hopkins, may strike some readers as too adult. Witty dialogue helps offset the slow pacing of this alternately funny and stodgy cozy. (Apr.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
