The Puzzle Lady vs. The Sudoku Lady (Puzzle Lady #11) by Parnell Hall

The Puzzle Lady vs. The Sudoku Lady (Puzzle Lady #11) Reviews

• 
  Miranda Beverly

  I have read all the puzzle lady books, I'm just not sure why. They're all terrible. This newest one is a convoluted mess, there are no clues to help you figure out who did it, and when you do find out at the end, it's just some random peripheral character with the weakest of motivations. The book is all talk and no action, which would be fine except that the dialogue is some of the worst I've ever read. Whoever Parnell Hall's editor is, they should be fired. No one talks the way they do in this book, and they all talk exactly the same way. No one has their own voice or manner of speech. If you want a good drinking game, you could take a shot every time someone in the book says, "now, see here!", which they all seem to at one point or another. The main character of Cora Felton is the only interesting person, and frankly I'm getting tired of the depiction of the local sheriff. He is, at the same time, a bumbling fool that cannot solve a crime alone, and a man who repeatedly uses the word vehemently. Really? The plot has people running around doing things for reasons that no one fully understands, that no one would really do. And it's inconsistency is ridiculous. There is an ex-husband character that is supposedly so mean and dangerous that the woman he was married to needs a restraining order, but when there's a "case", no one seems to have any trouble ignoring that to get information, or letting him run all over town playing private eye, for reasons I can't even begin to guess. Also, he's an idiot. He had no place in the book and should not even have been included. The ending courtroom scene is one of the dumbest things I've ever read. The cops, judges, and laws are completely ignored in this town, so why have them at all? The author himself even references several times throughout the story that if one of the characters were reading a book with this stuff in it, they'd throw it across the room. Is knowing you're terrible supposed to make it better? I just can't read these things anymore.
• 
  Maureen

  wow. this was SO BAD. I only read a few pages at a time to fall asleep. The characters weren't just flat, they were ridiculous stereotypes. the courtroom scene was absurd. I understand it is supposed to be lighthearted but my god this is like cotton candy - terrible for you, unsatisfying, and cloying.
• 
  Barbara

  Originally liked this series a lot. Funny, irreverent, down-to-earth...Can that wear thin? Am I getting old? Cora seems to be getting annoying, rather than the independent, free-spirit I thought she was. I used to enjoy how "real" Cora was. Now, she seems to be so self-centered, deceitful and conniving. What happened?
  
  This is a lighter mystery. Lighter mysteries have their place; I often enjoy them. I'm not sure why this was just a tad unsatisfactory - maybe I've moved on in a sense. Too much levity; too much lying; too much sarcasm (can I actually be saying that?).
  
  The earlier books are fun. But maybe contrived in a way. A Puzzle Lady that can't solve a puzzle (we're talking crossword puzzles. Her niece constructs crossword puzzles and is a whiz at solving them. Cora is just basically a "front" person; her age basically lending respectability. I loved it when Cora proves to be a whiz at Sudoku. I do poorly at crosswords, myself. I am by no means a whiz at Sudoku, but I know I do so much better at those puzzles and enjoy them more, that I felt a kind of kinship with Cora. But now, I wonder.
  
  Maybe this series is getting to be too munch of a good thing.
• 
  Darlene

  I couldn't finish the book. The inane way Minami created theories of the murder were totally incredible and,this is just a quibble, I had a hard time with two Japanese ladies getting together for dinner and speaking English. This was too much so I put it down. It was too much to swallow the murder theories plus characters who are forced to follow a plot rather than unveiling the plot.
  I did enjoy the first in the book in the "Puzzle Lady" series. I wish I could have enjoyed this one.
• 
  Tj Sandstrom

  Yes, I enjoyed reading this book. It was about as silly as the cover indicated it would be... but I also have some gripes that I'd like to air about it.
  
  1. Why in the world does a man believe that he has the right to depict the experience of a two women puzzle creators? Though this is fiction, and I believe it is for fun, I truly could not get over the fact that Parnell Hall took it upon himself to create a fictitious woman puzzle creator... I guess I believe in genuity and speaking about one's own experience, and from what I know about Hall, he's never experienced the world as a woman (could be wrong, that's always a fact). It was hard for me to overlook that aspect while reading this book.
  
  2. I also wasn't exactly pleased with the Japanese sudoku lady created by a white man... again, maybe there's something about Parnell Hall that I am missing... but as for my knowledge right now, I was put off by this as well.
  
  3. The logic used by Cora Felton was so roundabout, it left me confused and unconvinced. I was not happy with the ending of this book, because it really didn't make much sense to the judge in the book, nor to me as a reader. I found myself glazing over the words, trying to understand the logic, but much like the judge and other male characters in the book, I just ended up giving Cora Felton the "OK" because I was annoyed with trying to piece together her indirect logic.
  
  Honestly, I got into this book really quickly and liked the speed at which I was reading it. I picked it up as a book to read before bed so that I would have dreams that would likely not be nightmares. I did not get nightmares from this book but I did feel that it was sort of a waste of my time... there are so many other books out there that could be read, I don't believe I will be reading any more of the "Puzzle Lady" series.
• 
  Kate

  "It's the battle of the century when Minami, the Sudoku Lady, shows up in Bakerhaven, Connecticut, to meet Cora Felton, the Puzzle Lady, whose sudoku books have just edged Minami's off the Japanese bestseller list. Before the rivals have a chance to square off, a killer strikes, and a sudoku puzzle is found at the scene of the murder. Now it's a fight to the finish to se who can unmask the filler.
  
  "Cora is eager to undo her Japanese counterpart -- at least until the poor woman is arrested for murder and Cora realizes that she accidentally framed her for the crime. As if that weren't complicated enough, the publicity of her arrest drives Minami's sales through the roof!
  
  "Now it's up to Cora to clear her rival's name, get her off the bestseller list, and trap the real killer, but she'd better do it fast, before the cops find out what Cora did and she winds up facing more jail time than Minami.
  
  "Boasting an entertaining, fun-filled mystery, as well as several satisfying crossword and sudoku puzzles, the Puzzle Lady['s latest adventure makes for a rollicking good read."
  
  Another complicated plot, with the Puzzle Lady solving at least one of the components with a clue not included before, but entertaining nonetheless.
• 
  Fiction With Fallon

  This was a fun page turner, the characters really made the book. Cora is a force to be reckoned with and she was a very fun character to follow. The mystery got a bit messy and chaotic at times, I think due to the writer's style of dialogue. He writes long pages of back and forth dialogue that can be confusing to follow who's saying what. The final scene was kind of crazy and required a decent amount of suspension of belief. I also think jumping into the middle of a well established series was a bit tricky. But overall I really enjoyed it and will definitely be looking to start the series from the beginning.
• 
  Amy Dunlap

  They’re all fairly mediocre (not sure why I keep reading them, I know!), but this one is mediocre with a side of racial stereotyping they try to excuse by saying “what’s the PC term again?” Ridiculous.
• 
  Christine Lucia Asha

  I have to say the first half-ish of this book was entertaining but then Dennis kept showing up and things got uninteresting for me.
  
  I want more of Sherry and Aaron's banter with their Aunt(inlaw) and less of Dennis showing up and complicating things unnecessarily
• 
  AngryBunny13

  I love the fact that Mr. Parnell Hall pokes fun at himself during the outrageous court room scene.
  
  Additionally the general hilarity that ensues with a rival brought in for Cora makes this read well worth it
• 
  Chrystine

  I found this book to be quite enjoyable. Cora has settled down, Denis was tolerable, and Sherry and Aaron were side characters. I do hope that there is another opportunity for the Puzzle Lady and the Sudoku Lady to cross paths again.
• 
  Harry Addington

  Very entertaining book and I like trying to solve the crosswords and sudokus.
• 
  Pat Sinclair

  Very fast read.
• 
  Anthony Yvonnica

  I love this series. Very humorous. Again, I am still waiting for the TV series
• 
  Jersey Joe

  The series has become the theater of the absurd. Just read the courtroom scene!
• 
  Brenda

  This was a fun read. Parnell Hall's Puzzle Lady series is a fun ,fast and entertaining read. I recommend this series
• 
  Michelle Fonts

  Not a fan of this one. There's better stories in the series.
• 
  Alison

  Got thorough it, but the writing was terrible.
• 
  JBradford

  With all the vast number of books that exist in the world, it is always a puzzle to find one to read despite the fact that my taste in reading are so catholic that I can almost walk up to any bookcase and pick any book and enjoy it. That is almost what happened here -- I was at the library looking to see if there were any Charlaine Harris books on the shelves that I have not yet read, and as a word on the title spine of a book on the next higher shelf deep out of me. The word, of course, was sudoku, which was enough to force me to pull the book off the shelf to look at its front cover and its back cover. The front cover should be the profile view of two ladies, 182 delicate and perhaps too young oriental women in the other a blonde/white-haired Caucasian woman whose features were distorted in an unflattering grimace, with the latter apparently giving the former a tongue lashing of the former maintain an inscrutable sweetness. In addition to providing the title, the front cover informed me that this was "a puzzle Lady mystery" and also that the book included puzzles by Will Shortz. That alone would have been enough to convince me to take the book, but the back cover included extremely complementary comments from reviewers of other books in the Puzzle Lady series. So it was a mystery novel within oriental lady and what the critics promised to be fascinating characters, and it included puzzles by Will Shortz (who, if you do not know, creates extraordinarily difficult sudoku puzzles). I had to take it.
  
  It was worth the slight risk. The characters are indeed fascinating, and the conversation between his daylight. The main characters are Cora Felton, the Puzzle Lady, who also creates sudoku and whose latest sudoku book has just become a bestseller in Japan; Minami, who in Japan is known as the Sudoku Lady and who is somewhat upset that Cora's book has just edged her own book off the bestseller list in Japan; Sherry, Cora's niece, with whom Cora lives but who has just gotten married to her newspaper reporter live-in lover, so that the small house beginning to field a bit crowded; Michiko, Minami’s teenaged niece, who is traveling with her art as a translator. Along with these main characters, Hall provides a contingent of minor characters who interact with these during the course of the book. There are two interesting subplots that run through the story: one is Cora, who has a great reputation for creating really difficult crossword puzzles, in fact cannot do crossword puzzles at all; she is great at sudoku but the puzzles that she publishes are created by her niece, Sherry -- conversely, Minami has a big reputation in Japan for creating devilish sudoku puzzles, but she is in fact completely on cable to solve them, and the puzzles that she publishes are in fact created by her niece, Michiko. The other aspect is that both of them have reputations for helping to solve crimes, and the ploy of the novel is that Minimi has come to the United States to see if she can best Cora and thereby win a reputation that will put her sudoku books back on the bestseller list. All they need, of course, is a complicated crime to work on, then one just happens to come along at the time that Minami and Michiko arrive. As if that were not enough, the crime rapidly expands into multiple murders, compounded by the fact that Sherry's ex-husband, who is still trying to get Sherry back gets involved with Michiko. The crime action is complex enough to satisfy most mystery fans, and the book has the added extras of crossword puzzles and sudoku puzzles containing clues to lead the two sleuths to a final conclusion (and which also can be solved by the reader for his/her entertainment, but the real joy of the book is the hilarious dialogue between the characters throughout. This is not great writing by any stretch, but it is witty and entertaining and a fun read -- sufficiently so that I will be looking for other books in the series in the future.
  
  The one problem I had with this novel is its continual insistence that Cora can solve sudoku's because of her mathematical skills, whereas Minimi cannot solve them because she does not have any math skills. There is no math involved in sudokus, as my writing instructor so nastily pointed out when I tried to suggest that my protagonist thought there was as A bit of irony in one of my own stories. Since I could not get away with it for a moment of sarcasm, it is bothersome to see a published writer continually repeating the claim seriously.
  
• 
  Tristan MacAvery

  I don't think there's any such thing as a Puzzle Lady mystery that doesn't, at the very least, keep you laughing throughout. Parnell Hall is a master of the ping-pong conversation, in some instances even surpassing
  Lawrence Block (sorry, Larry, gotta share the limelight a bit). In this, the eleventh in the series (the first is
  A Clue for the Puzzle Lady), the brilliantly volatile Cora Felton -- famous as the Puzzle Lady, despite the fact that she couldn't solve one if she wanted to, and that her niece Sherry Carter is actually the brains behind the image -- gets a challenge from her Japanese counterpart, the Sudoku Lady, to solve a crime. By the time things get going, there are three bodies, several sudoku, a crossword, and Cora accidentally framing the Sudoku Lady for the whole shebang.
  
  No spoilers. Besides, the final answer is complex enough -- and yet, strangely, simple enough -- to defy simply telling you who and how dunnit. Just dive into the book; you'll be hooked on the wonderfully skillful banter of the characters, and you won't be able to put it down. This is Parnell Hall's genius from the first, and it seems to get nothing but better. Sorry if I sound sycophantic. I'll put it this way: When this book came out, I was occupationally disadvantaged, and I risked rent money to buy it. Yeah. That good.
• 
  Earl

  I can't believe "The Puzzle Lady vs. The Sudoku Lady" is the eleventh book in Parnell Hall's Puzzle Lady mysteries! While the books can seem a bit formulaic after awhile, the characters and fun dialogue are what keeps me coming back for more. As much as I love crosswords, I don't even bother to try and solve the ones in the books anymore as I'm too impatient to get on with the story. A treat for puzzle lovers is that many big names are involved in the constructing and editing of those found in the stories. The plot gets too convoluted at times but, overall, the books remain to be breezy fun reads.
  
  Check out Parnell Hall's website for information about his other book series and other information.
  http://www.parnellhall.com
  
  The Puzzle Lady Series:
  A Clue for the Puzzle Lady
  Last Puzzle & Testament
  Puzzled to Death
  A Puzzle in a Pear Tree
  With this Puzzle I Thee Kill
  And a Puzzle to Die On
  Stalking the Puzzle Lady
  You Have the Right to Remain Puzzled
  The Sudoku Puzzle Murders
  Dead Man's Puzzle
  The Puzzle Lady vs. The Sudoku Lady
• 
  Susan

  Cora Felton, who's famed for constructing crossword puzzles but who prefers sudoku, is surprised by a visit from a Japanese sudoku constructor, and even more displeased when Minami challenges her to solve a crime. There's a dead woman in Bakerhaven, but everyone, including the ever-suspicious Cora, is sure that it's an accident. When another woman dies, a sudoku is found by her body, and the police arrest Minami. Cora knows that the woman is innocent, but how can she prove it? And Cora's friendly enemy, Becky, the only local lawyer, seems headed for a conflict-of-interest hearing when Cora badgers all the suspects to retain her. Amusing as usual.