From the B.C. comic strip, copyright 1970. It comes with a note that it has two former titles: B.C./"LIFE IS A SEVENTY-FIVE CENT PAPERBACK" and B.C./"LIFE IS A NINETY-FIVE CENT PAPERBACK."
This is one of Johnny Hart's funniest collections of daily comic strips of his I have read so far. I had a hard time limiting the number of examples to put one here.
A Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter Mystery
Kendra is studying in preparation for a bid to regain her license to practice law which she lost when she was wrongly accused of being a murderer.
After losing her lawyer job, Kendra moved into the garage apartment of her home and rented the actual house to a young couple, Charlotte and Yul.
Charlotte is a former contestant on a reality TV dating show. As the winner, she was awarded one million dollars but lost a lover when she was informed that the rule was the winner could take the money or take the lover but couldn't take both. So Charlotte chose the money, which is how she affords the rent on Kendra's large and luxurious home. However, the catch to the money was a rule that she had to give up her love match, Chad, and never seem him again or she would forfeit the money. She picked the money, later claiming that Chad was a phony whose only reason for being on the show was for the exposure which he hoped would help his career in show business.
Charlotte and Yul enjoyed holding parties and one night Chad showed up at one of their parties uninvited. When Charlotte discovered he was there, they got into an argument and she sent him packing. But then Chad turned up dead, laying on the floor of the house, with Charlotte's and Yul's pet ferrets released from their pen and nibbling on his dead body.
Charlotte talks Kendra into investigating the murder even though Kendra is not certain that about Charlotte's or Yul's innocence. She does it anyway because if it is determined that the ferrets caused Chad's death, then the ferrets will be euthanized. Which is not what either Charlotte, Yul or Kendra want.
This was a pretty good mystery even if the murderer improbably tried to affix blame to the ferrets. The story is also mildly humorous which I felt added to the story.
After teenage oddball Wednesday Addams was kicked out of school for releasing piranha fish into the school's swimming pool to punish some boys who had been bullying her younger brother Pugsley, Wednesday was been enrolled in Nevermore Academy by her parents, Morticia and Gomez, who also attended Nevermore when they were teenagers.
Wednesday is not happy to be placed in this school intended for kids who are not ordinary. This school has students who include vampires, werewolves, witches, shapeshifters, psychics and more.
It soon becomes apparent that something is amiss at Nevermore and in the local village of Jericho. It doesn't take Wednesday long to ferret out the rumors of a monstrous creature haunting the countryside and killing people. So she takes it upon herself to discover the truth about this supposed monster.
Which she does when she witnesses the monster murder a fellow student. However, the school officials insist that the student, Rowan,was not killed and he is subsequently seen packing up his things and going into town to board a train home. Wednesday knows what she saw and finding Rowan's bloody spectacles on the ground where the attack occurred proves it was not just something she imagined.
Finding the truth is going to be difficult since some of the teachers and the principal are part of the cover-up. As Wednesday digs deeper into the secrets of Nevermore, not only is she gathering the evidence she needs to track down tbe monster, whom she suspects is a fellow student, but she also finds herself gaining friends and becoming part of a community, something she never really expected or wanted.
This was an OK mystery story. Wednesday, unfortunately, keeps accusing the wrong people of being the monster and it makes her look like a fool, in my opinion.
Another thing that I found rather sad is the serious nature of the story, with very little of the fun of the original Addams cartoons nor the silliness of the original TV series. True there are some lighter moments that hark back to the roots of the Addams family, but they are scarce. I just found the story to be too serious for me.
Yue-ying is servant to her beautiful sister, Mingyu, who is a courtesan in a brothel in China, The Lotus Palace. Yue-ying used to be a prostitute until her sister bought her and brought her to live with her in the Lotus Palace.
Mingyu is the star of the Lotus Palace, being very popular with the men who visit the house. Yue-ying looks a lot like her sister but has a large birthmark on her face that most customers find upsetting. So she serves as her sister's personal servant.
Bai Huang is a man of noble birth who visits the Lotus Palace to spend his time and money on Mingyu. He is really there for Yue-ying but she keeps him at arm's distance, choosing to disbelieve his interest in her is sincere and not some kind of joke or setup. Mingyu knows of his interest in her sister and it bothers her and creates some distance in her relationship with Yue-ying.
The Lotus Palace is not the only brothel in the area. Huilan was the famous courtesan and main attraction at the House of a Hundred Songs. Huilan and Mingyu knew of each other and sometimes spent time together at parties and other social events. When Huilan was found murdered in her bed, it was only to be expected that the authorities would have questions for both Mingyu and Yue-ying, hoping they might know of Huilan's activities before her death. Both women have nothing of consequence to tell the investigators.
Yue-ying decides to do a little investigating on her own and discovers that Bai Huang is also investigating Huilan's death and also the death of an unknown man on the nearby waterfront. Pirates are not unknown in the area and the man's death could have some connection to piracy and human trafficking.
This was an OK read. The romance between a humble servant/former prostitute was a tad unbelievable. Housefuls of beautiful, willing women and the rich guy chooses the woman with the huge birthmark on her face.
Another problem I had with the story is the killer turns out to be a very minor character in the story that we never hear very much at all about.
Overall, I'd say I liked the story. Apparently it is one of the first books in a series of mystery stories set in the Pingkang li area.
