From Publishers Weekly

When an old college friend is murdered, shot in the head at a landfill, 68-year-old librarian Maddy Sprowls is willing to work overtime to help the police discover the culprit in Corwin's winning second cozy to feature the head of the Hannawa (Ohio) Herald-Union's "morgue" (after 2003's Morgue Mama: The Cross Kisses Back). Digging in the newspaper's files, Maddy uncovers a decades-old unsolved murder that took place during her student days and wonders if the two crimes could be connected. A game old bird battling loneliness and the prospect of retirement, she has a tendency to digress about local landmarks and such trivia as how to make her favorite sandwich. But once Maddy starts to put the pieces of the puzzle together, the plot picks up and builds to an exciting and fitting conclusion.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Maddy Sprowls, otherwise known (but never within hearing distance) as Morgue Mama, gets a shock when she settles in at her desk at the Hannawa Herald-Union one Monday morning. She reads the obituary of an old friend. Gordon Sweet, an archaeology professor, was shot through the head. Determined to find out who killed her friend, Maddy, the head librarian at the Herald-Union, stumbles on evidence that Sweet's murder might be connected to another murder that happened half a century ago. The third Maddy Sprowls mystery is, like the previous two, solidly plotted. But it's not the story that keeps us going; it's Maddy herself, a charming, curmudgeonly 68-year-old who is less Miss Marple and more television's Lou Grant (adjusted for age and gender differences). If future Morgue Mama adventures are as fun as this one, the series could be in for a long run. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Publishers Weekly

In Corwin's witty and engaging caper, the start of a new series, newspaper archivist Dolly Madison Sprowls (called Morgue Mama "behind her back") and a determined cub reporter, Aubrey McGinty, team up to investigate the poisoning of TV evangelist Buddy Wing at the Heaven Bound Cathedral in "the Hallelujah city" of Hannawa, Ohio. Part satire and part social commentary, the story is far from a standard whodunit, since Aubrey, rather than finding the culprit, seems bent only on clearing the name of convict Sissy James, the badly abused ex-girlfriend of a rival preacher. The irrepressible, 67-year-old Maddy (as she prefers to be called), a lonely divorcee clinging to her post as manager of the Hannawa Herald-Union's morgue, helps Aubrey search the newspaper's records, which yield a multitude of suspects, some amusing and some tragic, but each adding an intriguing dimension to the ever more complex case. Small town politics and office love affairs entangle almost everyone except poor Maddy, whose existence before now has revolved around filing news articles in steel cabinets for brash reporters to paw through. Her matchup with Aubrey brings her and the reader genuine excitement right through the stunning conclusion to this lively adventure.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"An ambitious young Ohio crime reporter teams up with the wise old curmudgeon heading up the newspaper's morgue. Dolly Madison Sprowls, 67, thinks she'll be teaching newcomer Aubrey McGinty, 24, a thing or two about proper Hannawa Herald-Union procedure when she comes looking for file clips on the Buddy Wing murder. But Aubrey immediately convinces the acerbic Morgue Mama to help her prove the televangelist wasn't poisoned by Sissy James, even though she confessed. High on their list of new suspects are Tom Bandicoot, Sissy's lover and the former assistant pastor at the Heaven Bound Cathedral until Buddy cast him out, forcing him to start up the rival New Day Epiphany Temple; his wife, Annie, desperate to have him reclaim his former eminence; Guthrie Gates, the new golden boy at Heaven Bound; disgruntled parishioner Wayne F. Dillow, whose wife died despite healing sessions with Buddy; several Kent State students working at the Cathedral as part-time interns; and Elaine Albert, who's responsible for getting the reverend's sermons on the air. Verbally abrasive Dolly and seductively manipulative Aubrey are soon offending town nabobs, cops, managing editors, rival reporters, and each other before newcomer Corwin throws in a couple of twists.... That's unfortunate, because the wry handling of the irrepressible Dolly, and her takes on aging, youth in heat, and diner specials, are very appealing indeed." --Kirkus Reviews

Newspaper librarian Maddy Sprowls never gives story ideas to the editors at The Hannawa Herald-Union. She prefers to stay in the newspaper ''morgue'' and do her job, and hopes the editors stay in the newsroom and do theirs. Then one Saturday she sees four elderly women get out of a taxicab at a garage sale. She figures that those women must hire the cabby every week to drive them from garage sale to garage sale. And wouldn't that make a great feature story for the paper? Monday morning she runs straight to the newsroom with her idea. Shortly after the story runs, one of the four women is murdered: retired antique dealer Violeta Bell. Maddy wants no part of the investigation, but before she knows it, she's on another of her infamous snoopathons. And, good gravy, enjoying every minute of it. Violeta Bell is an enigma. She even claimed to be the Queen of Romania. Could it be true?