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Murder Passes the Buck | 
 enlarge | Author: Deb Baker
Publisher: Wheeler Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $23.95
You Save: $1.00 (4%)
New (3) Used (2) from $20.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 1429237
Format: Large Print
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 313
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1
ISBN: 1597223883
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781597223881
ASIN: 1597223883
Publication Date: December 13, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: ships in bubblewrap.
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Book Description
Gertie Johnson may be outspoken, distrustful of banks, and a quick draw with the pepper spray, but she hasn't lost her marbles. Her son Blaze, the sheriff in a backwoods community of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, is petitioning to become her legal guardian, but Gertie, a sassy sixty-six-year-old widow with a taste for detective work, has got bigger fish to fry: solving the murder of Chester Lampi who was shot dead in his deer blind. Blaze-who's more interested in retiring than investigating-rules Chester's death as a hunting accident. So, Gertie takes on the case with help from her friends, man-hungry Cora Mae and pin-curled Kitty. Interrogating neighbors, spying, impersonating the FBI . . . the stubborn, spunky grandmother won't give up the chase even when the killer takes aim at her.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Yoopers--what fun June 18, 2008
Being from Michigan, I know how faithfully this book catches the spirit and feeling of our U.P. (Upper Peninsula).
It's a unique place and this book nails the characters! It was a fun read, and I immediately bought the next two books in the series!
 In the middle of the road -- October 6, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I REALLY wanted to like this book. After all, I'm a native of Michigan, although from the southern part to be sure. Plus, I always like to support books about older people, since I'm now one of that category, too. But really now!
One of the supposed benefits of aging is the acquisition of wisdom and the foolishness of thinking one knows it all. In fact, the definition of insanity is to repeat the same action over and over expecting a different outcome each time. One can hardly wonder that Gertie Johnson's son Blaze (named after a horse she never had) and now the local sheriff, sought a court hearing questioning her ability to live by and care for herself.
Any responsible child would do the same if an elder in their family behaved the way Gertie does, with little or no regard for anyone else in the world. Especially as her husband had died just a bit more than a year earlier, and goodness knows, that'll throw anyone off-kilter for a while. In addition to bunches of stereotypes, she also makes way too many generalizations about the Swedes and the Finns and several other nationality groups who shall remain un-named here.
She's politically incorrect on nearly every page, but that didn't bother me so much as her continued insistence on doing stupid things. (I prefer to think she's politically irreverent, because she's not at all mean-spirited about it.) She's lived in the U. P. for too many years to not respect the climate and the weather conditions there. Having never driven any sort of motor vehicle in her life, it should come as no surprise that trying to drive a pickup truck in a northern Michigan winter would see her in a ditch. Several ditches, in fact. However, she does mostly injure only herself, physically, at least. Not that she doesn't sometimes do in others (not fatally) but it's about three to one in her favor.
So, with all these complaints why did I give this book 3 stars? Well, it is well-written, with a lot of good-natured humor, and it's very descriptive of the area and the people within the book. The geography is spot on. I just wish Gertie wasn't so hard-headed that she continually endangered her family and every other person in the book in her quest to become an investigator. It's certainly not the worst book I've ever read (and I did read it through to the end) but it's not the best, either. It's sort of in the great middle somewhere. I wish I could have liked it more. I'm not sure I liked it enough to want to read more of her tales, but we'll see . . .
 Evanovich Fans Will Love this Series! May 16, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Picture Grandma Mazur of the Stephanie Plum series sporting hunting orange, living in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan, and trying to operate her own PI business, and you have the laugh-a-minute fun of Murder Passes the Buck. The mystery itself takes a backseat to the wacky characters, but if you love slapstick fun, you won't mind. I found myself laughing out loud every few pages.
Yoopers have the last laugh! March 5, 2007
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I love this book! Murder Passes the Buck is one of those tongue-in-cheek mysteries that suspend reality enough that you can go along for the ride and just enjoy the wacky characters and their adventures. And these characters are a little wacky. Baker has set this book in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and peopled it with Yoopers (think U.P.'ers and you eventually get to Yoopers).
I have to admit that I was predisposed to this book because I do live in Michigan - but I am a Troll, not a Yooper. Trolls live under the Mackinac Bridge in the Lower Peninsula, Yoopers live above. I have met a few Yoopers here and there and they are different. The ones I have met are tremendously resourceful and hardworking and willing to eat any varmint that comes their way - all of which comes from living in a hostile climate, I suspect. Baker has created an entertaining and fun look at life among the Yoopers by keeping it farcical and light-hearted.
Our heroine, Gertie Johnson, has decided that her neighbor was murdered in his hunting blind and when her lazy son Blaze, the Sheriff, says it is an accident, she decides to investigate. She tromps all over the frozen North with her grandson Little Donny and her friends Cora Mae and Kitty and, along the way, teaches herself how to drive (sort of), dyes her hair orange (okay, that was an accident), and learns how to use a stun gun (OOPS!).
This book is very funny, the mystery is pretty good, and the characters and setting are fantastic. If you like a comedy/adventure mystery, this is right up your alley.
Did I guess it? Yes. Will I read more? Just as soon as the next one comes out!
murder passes the buck February 22, 2007
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
Honestly, I wanted to give this book fewer stars, but I felt really bad about doing so. It seems that everyone else disagrees with me, so I decided to go with 3 stars. I didn't get this book at all.
Am I really supposed to believe that a 66 year old woman can be this dumb? She starts a detective agency but does so out in the open. She makes no bones about the fact that she is looking for the perpetrator in this story. It's a little hard for me to believe that she would set herself up as such a target. I kept reading and reading, and I kept wondering and wondering where the mystery was. It was rarely mentioned in the first 100 or so pages. I think the reader is supposed to laugh at Gertie's antics, but I was left rolling my eyes. The mystery itself was so predictable; the book revolved around land rights in a small, backwoods community. I think I've heard that one before.
I think the setting could have been so interesting, and I was excited to read the book. I thought it was a neat idea but so poorly executed. The book was just shallow; there were a few tender moments, such as when we found out the real way Gertie's husband died. Despite its flaws, I do intend on giving this series one more try because I had such high expectations to begin with.
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