(courtesy Penguin Random House)
It would be tempting to take in the title to this book by Leslie Meier and assume that the much-loved iconic Easter Bunny has had a brain snap, a breakdown and a loss of inhibition all in one and got on an uncharacteristically bloody killing spree.
But while we don’t know much about what the Easter Bunny does on the other 364 days of the year – are he and Santa in a cosmetic Ponzi scheme? Does he run a corner store in New York with Bigfoot? Who could possibly know? – Easter Bunny Murder is not the novel to get the heart of that particular truth.
No, this book sits happily and festively inside the cosy murder genre, a story as much about the living as it is about those who have the misfortune when over-consumption of butter and chocolate is all but mandated.
In this story, Lucy Stone, the protagonist at the heart of the currently 31-book strong Lucy Stone Mystery series, has to get to the bottom of an Easter-set mystery when the Easter Bunny himself falls down and dies right at the gates of the fabled Pine Point Estate in front of horrified parents and kids from the cosy New England town of Tinker Cove.
Lest you find yourself wondering why any author would kill off the icon on the season, rest assured that it’s not the Easter Bunny himself who dies, but rather Van Van Vorst, the grandson of legendary nonagenarian Vivian Van Vorst aka VV, worth hundreds of millions and who raised herself from rural poverty to great wealth and influence.
Patrick was getting heavy and Lucy was passing him to Molly when the bunny reached Willis, swayed on his feet, and suddenly collapsed, dropping the basket. The colorful eggs rolled every which way as the bunny convulsed and then was still.
The crowd stood in shocked silence, until the little girl with braids began to cry. ‘The Easter Bunny is dead,’ she sobbed.
VV is in a poor health it turns out, and Van’s ill-fated donning of an Easter Bunny suit and subsequent death was his attempt to bring some Easter bonhomie back into an estate and family now shorn of it.
The once immaculate and verdant grounds are in overgrown ruins, staff numbers have been cut, and VV herself, once known for elegance, style and philanthropic generosity, is nowhere to be seen, consigned to a bed upstairs where nurses strictly control diet and access.
Lucy Stone, a reporter at the local newspaper, the Pennysaver, witnesses van’s very public demise, and while she is supposed to be concentrating on reporting on local municipal meetings and listings of upcoming social events, finds herself increasingly drawn into who killed Van and why.
More deaths follow, as of course they must in any mystery worth its body count salt, and Lucy, who goes undercover at Pine Point to get to the bottom of which Van Worsts are doing what to whom, can’t stay away even if it infuriates her anger-prone editor Ted.
In many ways, Easter Bunny Murder occupies a fairly standard murder mystery lane and there’s not much in the story that will surprise the average reader; however, Meier does a quite delightful job of crafting characters and warm, rich dialogue that gives this novel, and presumably the rest of the series, a cosy intimacy that makes even murder investigation not seem quite so awful.
(courtesy official author site)
Part of the allure of the book is Lucy herself.
She may not be the best investigative reporter around – though you’d think by book 19, she’d have sharpened her clue uncovering skills somewhat – and there are times when her line of questioning comes across as clumsy, blunt-forced ineptitude, but she’s a loving mother and grandmother, a pillar of the community and the sort of person who will take chances to get to the truth of the matter.
Take the fact that at one point, to gain access to Pine Point, she and her friend Sue pretend to be caterers for Van’s funeral, their presence in the grand mansion a chance to see if they can uncover clues and maybe even speak to VV herself.
By some miracle, Lucy and Sue aren’t found out, which is odd because Tinker Cove is a small community and surely somebody would know from the estate besides the cook who stays mum on who they really are, and Lucy is able to get to the bottom of who killed Van and some others and why.
In the grand tradition of murder mysteries, it’s not even remotely who you think it will be, and the path to the big reveal, which itself feels weirdly cosy, is satisfying enough for any murder mystery buff to feel well satisfied with both the investigative journey and the justice-serving outcome.
Izzy’s face reddened. ‘Are you crazy? You saw hr condition! She’s in and out of consciousness! I don’t know if she’s going to make it through the night.’ She turned to go back to the rec room, then whirled around. ‘Don’t say a word about this, I’m warning you. Just leave my mother in peace! Okay?’
‘Okay,’ said Lucy, stunned by Izzy’s vehemence.
But beyond the murdering and the mystery solving, what really makes Easter Bunny Murder a delight to read is how beautifully Meier crafts the world of Lucy Stone and the town in which she lives.
Keep in mind that Easter Bunny Murder is an instalment well into the series itself and it would be easy for a less assured author to slip into a ream of assumed knowledge and hope people can just keep up.
But while there are clearly characters and relationships and family dynamics that might be richer and fuller if you’ve read the whole series, the novel very much works as a stand along entity, and it’s easy to get a sense of who Lucy Stone is and why she does what she does.
Placing her in a small New England town does give Easter Bunny Murder major Murder, She Wrote vibes, but not in a derivative way, and the novel works in large part because it has such a strong sense of the world in evokes and how that plays into Lucy’s activities and her need to see justice served.
Murder it, we can all agree, awful and too terrible to contemplate, but murder mysteries like Easter Bunny Murder occupy a delightfully escapist place in storytelling, concentrating less on the murdering and more on the mystery solving, with the added bonus of introducing us to characters who are idiosyncratic warm and caring and who focus the story on raw, caring humanity, reminding us that while the world can be an horrifically brutal place at times, that it can also bring out the best in people and good can very much come out of the bad.