The dead of night

At the start of Agatha finalist Viets's enjoyable eighth mystery featuring Angela Richman, death investigator for Chouteau County, Mo. (after 2022's Late for His Own Funeral), Angela and her date, police officer Christopher Ferretti, attend the annual Howl-o-ween Benefit Auction for Chouteau Forest University; the highest bidder gets the opportunity to stay in the Cursed Crypt. Any winner who succeeds in spending the full night there will be granted membership in the elite and powerful Chouteau Founders Club. Since the 1980s, only one brave soul has managed this feat. When the crypt is opened the morning after the auction, inside are the horribly mutilated bodies of this year's top bidder, alleged rapist Trey Lawson, and his girlfriend, Lydia Fynch, whose testimony at his trial saved him from prison. Angela and Det. Jace Budewitz, her friend and colleague, investigate these murders as well as other suspicious deaths that may or may not be connected. Fans of the intrepid and relatively sensible Angela will overlook the wobbly plot and wonky motives as they cheer on her burgeoning relationship with Christopher, who never gets in her way. Cozy fans will find plenty to like. Agent: Joshua Bilmes, JABberwocky. (Apr.)

Death investigator Angela Richman probes a gruesome murder in a cursed crypt. Chouteau Forest University's Howl-o-ween Benefit Auction features a fancy dinner where the hoi polloi mingle freely with the likes of Reggie and Bradford Du Pres, members of the exclusive Chouteau Founders Club. There's even room for rich nobodies like Trey Lawson to breathe the rarified air. But the main event is a bidding war for the right to spend the night in the university's Cursed Crypt, the burial spot of Eugene Franco "Mean Gene" Cortini, who in 1822 laid a curse on the fledgling college that haunts it to this day. What could possibly go wrong when Lawson snatches the prize from under Bradford's nose and is gleefully locked in the tomb to spend the night with his college-age girlfriend, a case of beer, two bottles of Merlot, and a fifth of tequila? Angela, who attends the shindig at the urging of her boss, Police Chief Butkus, has her misgivings, especially when she finds a jack-o-lantern inscribed with the warning "Mean Gene will not sleep alone. Tonight two will join him--permanently!" But Butkus pooh-poohs her concerns until the next morning, when two dead bodies are discovered, awash in blood. The first part of the puzzle: How did someone get into the crypt, which was locked and chained shut? The second, even more puzzling part: Which of Lawson's many enemies did it? Viets lets Angela stretch way past her pedestrian role as a collector of death scene evidence, making her almost a partner to the investigating officer. Allowing her heroine to be both methodical and intuitive should endear Viets to fans of feisty female sleuths. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.