One Large Coffin to Go: A Polly Deacon Mystery

Polly Deacon Mystery #4

by H. Mel Malton

In the fourth Polly Deacon mystery, pregnant and grumpy, Polly yearns to escape the increasingly annoying advice of family and friends. When an opportunity comes up to travel to England to attend a puppetry conference, she jumps at it, in spite of her "delicate condition." The trouble starts when someone tries to steal her luggage at the airport, and by the time she arrives in Canterbury, she knows someone's stalking her. When another woman is found dead, a mangled puppet nearby, the question arises - is Polly next? Set against the backdrop of the ancient town where Thomas Becket was murdered, this fourth Polly Deacon mystery places puppet-maker Polly in the middle of a pea-souper fog, eluding a persistent thug, refusing to cooperate with the police and desperately trying to stay out of trouble. This is hard to do - when you're sleuthing for two.

Genres: Mystery

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Aka Mel Malton

H. Mel Malton was born in England and emigrated with her family to Canada in the 1960s. She is a member of Crime Writers of Canada and her first mystery novel, Down in the Dumps was short-listed for an Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Crime Novel. Her first young adult series, The Alan Nearing Mysteries, began with The Drowned Violin, and was followed by Pioneer Poltergeist. She lives in Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia.

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. But, unfortunately I didn’t. One positive it was well written. But, I had many problems with it. First, the author uses actual towns and landmarks, but she also uses fictional towns. Knowing the province of Ontario the fictional towns used in proximity to actual cities and landmarks was distracting.

I feel the author had a political agenda with her subtle and not so subtle knocks on a political party.

Polly and all whom Polly came in contact with and engaged in conversation with about the Pro Life Marchers had the same opinion. Very negative and aggressive. If the author had attended a Pro Life March such as the one held each year in Ottawa where thousands of people march, she could not honestly describe the March or the Marchers as she described and continued to negatively project on throughout the book. I felt like the author had an agenda to attack Pro Life individuals and this gave her a platform.
I honestly found Polly unlikable. She was selfish and extremely dense. The red flags that she was the target and her life was in danger were so obvious that it made you mad. In mad as “Seriously you don’t see this!” The fact she never checked the ashes is a good example of her denseness. If you actually read the book you knew that what ever the bad people wanted was in the ashes. I thought diamonds.

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book was really good. It was well-written thought provoking and told a great story. I could definitely relate to the main character. The timing of choosing this book to read was awkward. I haven't touched it in years and recently I decided to finally read it. During this time, my grandmother had a stroke and passed away. Also the day of the funeral, I read the beginning of a chapter speaking about funerals and how Polly believes they are more for the families than anything else... probably a coincidence but strange nonetheless.

[May · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maiku:

Pregnant puppeteer
followed to England by thugs -
what are they after?