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"Strange eccentric amateur sleuth tale."

Though her preference would be to stay home in Southern California, literary agent Charlie Greene agrees to accompany her adopted mother who is attending a funeral in Myrtle, Iowa. Charlie has not met this side of the family that has never accepted adoption as a source of viable kin. Still, Charlie would do almost anything for her mother, biology professor Edwina Greene, including meeting the extended family even in this backwater.

Once there, Charlie realizes she has an opportunity to uncover the identity of her biological mother, but instead ends up at Gentle Oaks Nursing Home. Though elderly, the patients seem more senile than the average geriatrics. Most of the senior citizens act petrified in mind and body leaving Charlie to wonder why society allows people to live with what appears no dignity, hope or thought. Apparently someone agrees with Charlie because someone begins killing the residents. Encouraged to uncover the truth, Charlie begins to investigate what seem to be euthanasia killings.

The latest Charlie Green mystery, THE RAMPANT REAPER, is a strange eccentric amateur sleuth tale. The story line centers on what to do for the aging especially when the mind goes and the body is not lagging far behind. However, Marlys Millhiser's efforts to use humor to diffuse the seriousness of the topic come across as iniquitous because the cast including the heroine is nasty. Fans who don't mind an ensemble of misanthropes will enjoy Charlie's sleuthing and the insight into a problem that society would prefer die away.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted June 20, 2002

Literary agent and amateur sleuth Charlie Greene accompanies her mother to her great-great-aunt's funeral under great duress--after all, Charlie herself is adopted, and this part of her extended family has never made her feel that welcome. Plus, it's in Myrtle, Iowa, about as far from Charlie's life as a high-powered California literary agent as one can get. But she agrees to go. How bad could it be?

In one of Marlys Millhiser's quirky, offbeat mysteries, that is the world's biggest rhetorical question. Because someone may be offing the elderly in this midwestern town's only nursing home, and it falls to Charlie, the suspicious outsider, to put all the pieces together. Dealing with a passel of wacky relatives she's never met and a vicious killer as well won't be the easiest task she's ever been handed, but Charlie's good humor and recently acquired investigative experience should be more than enough to finish the job. That is, if she can escape the prying eyes that seem to peer at her from every corner of the tiny town.

Millhiser outdoes herself yet again in The Rampant Reaper , an effort sure to leave both loyal fans and new readers clamoring for the next installment of this unconventional and engaging series.