A Birthday Bash And a Puzzle to Die On Await Cora and an Outsider

Summary: A birthday bash by admiring Bakerhaven acquaintances And a Puzzle to Die On, the latter the sixth Puzzle Lady mystery, respectively await Cora and an outsider.

Cushman's Bake Shop advises customers of upcoming Halloween trick-or-treating, and perhaps of fresh pastries as treats, with a jack-o'-lantern window display. Sherry Carter acknowledges the scary night with a window jack-o'-lantern, perhaps a bit scarier than Mary Cushman's, perhaps less scary than anything Cora arranges; Man vyi, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A surprise birthday bash by admiring Bakerhaven acquaintances And a Puzzle to Die On, the latter also the title of the sixth Puzzle Lady mystery, respectively await Cora Felton and an outsider.

Her birthday became public knowledge once Cora, who bashes surprise parties even more than she belittles birthdays and bemoans wedding anniversaries, bloomed as beloved Puzzle Lady. Perhaps no one, apart Cora and her housemate and niece Sherry Carter, can calculate correctly the birth year that confirms which milestone birthday November 1st celebrates. Perhaps no one, apart herself and Sherry, deduces what Cora desires from what she downs at Country Kitchen and Wicker Basket restaurants and Cushman’s Bake Shop.

Cora enjoys Mary Cushman-brewed coffee that Bakerhaven acquaintances such as Chief Dale Harper and First Selectman Iris Cooper respectively esteem with Manhattan-made cranberry and unspecified muffins.

Cora perhaps feasts upon fresh slices from the pizza parlor on the first floor of the side-street building where Becky Baldwin functions as only Bakerhaven attorney.

Glamorous Becky goes for a tossed salad at Wicker Basket, where Cora gorges on a double bacon cheeseburger with fried onion rings, albeit with Diet Coke. The Parent Teacher Association (PTA) for all Bakerhaven public schools or perhaps only the elementary school has Dale down for two tickets to the turkey raffle. Cushman’s Bake Shop includes a Halloween jack-o’-lantern in its window display without indicating to Bakerhaven acquaintances such as cruciverbalist Harvey Beerbaum whether it also is raffle-inspired.

Cora and Sherry perhaps jubilate Halloween and Thanksgiving without pumpkins, even as Sherry joins in Bakerhaven traditional jack-o’-lantern window displays, but with the latter’s traditional turkey.

Sherry’s iced tea, not her lemonade, and pot roast with herbs, sauteed onions and tomato sauce kindle reporter Aaron Grant’s thirst and Cora’s thirst and hunger.

Cora lightens Cushman-brewed coffee with loads of condiment-stable sugar and, albeit less than Harvey, lots of condiment-table milk for a late lunch with a cranberry scone. Nobody mentions what Police Officer Sam Brogan munches upon, apart manifesting chewing audibly and popping visually unspecified gum when rock-throwing trick-or-treaters make him miss meal times. Bakerhaven acquaintances, before nestling into newfangled, one-stop shopping mall niches, navigated Route 9 to the diner neighboring the woods-shaded wooden shack named the Kingman Grove icehouse.

The birthday bash offers a chocolate cake and a puzzle to die on, the former observable in what Cora orders when dining out, the latter not.

Cora pays for chocolate ice cream, not the vanilla preferred by other patrons of the truck-stop diner outside New Haven, over apple pie and Pyrex-prepared coffee.

Bakerhaven acquaintances queue into the public library for the 8- by 8-foot (2.44- by 2.44-meter) birthday cake atop two 4- by 8-foot (1.22- by 2.44-meter) tables. The 150-plus-cake dessert reflected Dale, daughter Clara, Dr. Nathan, Iris, Judge Hobbs, library assistant Jimmy Potter, Mary, realtor Judy Knauer, Sam and 140-plus others each cake-baking. Chocolate and vanilla frosting, as black-and-white icing, over the 150-plus-cakes surprise suggests a crossword puzzle with 22 and 23 Across 10-candled spaces and square 55 1-candled.

The birthday bash triggers a surprise cake for a 21-plus-year-old who never tells her true age and a puzzle to die on, thanks to 14 Down.

Apple pie with vanilla ice cream attracts all but chocoholic Cora Felton, who subsequently acknowledges vanilla icing as tastier than chocolate frosting, at a truck-stop diner outside New Haven; Monday, Sep. 8, 2014, 18:45, image of Apple Pie à la Mode: jeffreyw, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Cushman's Bake Shop advises customers of upcoming Halloween trick-or-treating, and perhaps of fresh pastries as treats, with a jack-o'-lantern window display. Sherry Carter acknowledges the scary night with a window jack-o'-lantern, perhaps a bit scarier than Mary Cushman's, perhaps less scary than anything Cora arranges; Man vyi, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Balle-à-leunettes_Halloween.jpg

Apple pie with vanilla ice cream attracts all but chocoholic Cora Felton, who subsequently acknowledges vanilla icing as tastier than chocolate frosting, at a truck-stop diner outside New Haven; Monday, Sep. 8, 2014, 18:45, image of Apple Pie à la Mode: jeffreyw, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mmm..._apple_pie_ala_mode.jpg

For further information:

Hall, Parnell. 2019. Lights! Camera! Puzzles! New York NY; London UK: Pegasus Crime.

Hall, Parnell. 2018. The Purloined Puzzle. New York NY: Minotaur Books, A Thomas Dunne Book, an imprint of St. Martin's Press.

Hall, Parnell. 2017. A Puzzle To Be Named Later. New York NY: Minotaur Books, A Thomas Dunne Book, an imprint of St. Martin's Press.

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Marriner, Derdriu. 30 March 2021. "Bakerhaven Maps Aim a Victim at a Birthday Bash And a Puzzle to Die On." Earth and Space News. Tuesday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2021/03/bakerhaven-maps-aim-victim-at-birthday.html

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Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2021/03/four-cryptograms-assure-two-deaths-in.html

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Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2021/03/honeyed-lemoned-teas-are-for-fiancees.html

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Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2021/03/manhattan-and-san-diego-account-for-why.html

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Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2021/03/christmas-carolers-are-three-voices.html

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Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2021/02/a-puzzle-in-pear-tree-alters-christmas.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 16 February 2021. "Tristate Access Adds a Broadway Director to A Puzzle in a Pear Tree." Earth and Space News. Tuesday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2021/02/tristate-access-adds-broadway-director.html

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Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2021/02/attorney-becky-baldwin-maybe-aces-new.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 2 February 2021. "Perhaps Fun Night Attendees Ate All Free Desserts in Puzzled to Death." Earth and Space News. Tuesday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2021/02/perhaps-fun-night-attendees-ate-all.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 26 January 2021. "New Yorkers Adapt to Less Light and More Parking in Puzzled to Death." Earth and Space News. Tuesday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2021/01/new-yorkers-adapt-to-less-light-and.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 19 January 2021. "Fifteen Million Dollars Avenge Old Wrongs in Last Puzzle and Testament." Earth and Space News. Tuesday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2021/01/fifteen-million-dollars-avenge-old.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 12 January 2021. "Chicken Soup Awes All But Appears Nowhere in Last Puzzle and Testament." Earth and Space News. Tuesday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2021/01/chicken-soup-awes-all-but-appears.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 5 January 2021. "Interstate Highways Add More Hurley Heirs to Last Puzzle and Testament." Earth and Space News. Tuesday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2021/01/interstate-highways-add-more-hurley.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 29 December 2020. "Bakerhaven Acquaintances Afford A Clue for the Puzzle Lady." Earth and Space News. Tuesday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2020/12/bakerhaven-acquaintances-afford-clue.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 22 December 2020. "Bakerhaven Alcohol Acts as A Clue for the Puzzle Lady." Earth and Space News. Tuesday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2020/12/bakerhaven-alcohol-acts-as-clue-for.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 15 December 2020. "An Actual Bakerhaven Map Never Appears as A Clue for the Puzzle Lady." Earth and Space News. Tuesday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2020/12/an-actual-bakerhaven-map-never-appears.html

"Puzzle Lady." Parnell Hall.com > Books. Website by Kate Anchev/Outbox Online Design Studio.
Available @ http://parnellhall.com/puzzle-lady/