The Bookmonger: Second book published in ‘Puzzle Club series
Published 10:10 pm Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Earlier sunsets and cooler weather – summer isn’t officially over yet, but we’re heading into cozy season.
Lake Oswego author Roz Noonan has just come out with “That Missing Piece Is Killing Me” – the second book in her Alice Pepper Lonely Hearts and Puzzle Club Mystery series.
Alice Pepper lives in the small (fictional) Oregon town of West Hazel.
Divorced at just about the time she was expecting to retire, Alice has gone back to work as a librarian to keep the house she and her husband had co-owned during their marriage. Now it serves as a gathering point for friends and relations – these include Alice’s grown granddaughters Madison and Taylor, her sister Violet, and her recently widowed friend, Ruby.
An assortment of other friends regularly come through to share in meals and work on whatever jigsaw puzzle is currently spread out on the table. Informally known as Alice Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Puzzle Club, this is an intergenerational bunch of active, curious women who like to get in on the action.
And when the popular owner of a local dance and martial arts studio goes missing, the women already have some connections to the case.
Madison is a recent-hire on the local police force, so she is involved in conducting the formal investigation.
On the other hand, Violet personally knew the missing woman, Michelle Chong, because they were members of the same book club. And Alice had recently been invited, as the town librarian, to give a talk to the book club.
So the older Puzzle Club ladies all feel an urgency to provide some assistance to the police investigation, especially after Michelle’s husband, an artist of some note, makes a dramatic public plea to have the kidnappers return his wife.
But the ladies wonder why the husband has jumped to the conclusion that his wife has been kidnapped. They believe that his actions are more motivated by sensationalized self-promotion than by genuine concern for Michelle’s welfare.
When Puzzle Club members delve into the case on their own, they start to question whether Michelle truly is the victim of foul play, or perhaps chose to leave on her own.
In any event, this story contains treacheries galore, including an illicit affair and a grisly murder.
But in typical cozy mystery style, “That Missing Piece Is Killing Me” also is studded with many delectable nuggets: descriptions of gourmet meals, resort lodges, interior design, fashionable clothing, and gallery art – enough, perhaps, to distract from the fact that our heroines are pretty clumsy amateur investigators – trespassing, removing potential evidence from the crime scene and sleuthing in other ways that are obviously out-of-bounds.
Where the author excels, however, is in amplifying the importance of maintaining vitality in one’s “golden years.” Nourishing the important connections of friendship and family, continuing to engage with the broader world, and navigating the hardships that are bound to crop up with courage and empathy – Puzzle Club members model many different ways of successfully putting the pieces together.
The Bookmonger is Barbara Lloyd McMichael, who writes this weekly column focusing on the books, authors and publishers of the Pacific Northwest. Contact her at bkmonger@nwlink.com