A Crossworder's Gift

New York: Berkley Prime Crime. Very Good+. 2004. 1st Berkley PrimeCrime Edition. Paperback. Several dents to back cover. No spine crease.. . 208 pages. A Crossword Mystery, No. 7. The husband-and-wife sleuth team is back in five tales of holiday mystery and mayhem. “Holly, Jolly Roger” takes Belle and Rosco to sunny St. Lucia in the Caribbean as they try to decipher the clues to a legendary buried treasure. “The Mystery of Wordsworth House” may remain just that unless Belle and Rosco can turn their stay at a snowy Montreal inn into a chance for a family to solve the riddle of their past . . . with the help of a ghost. There’s no place like Las Vegas for the holidays, but “A Crossworder’s Gift” may never reach its intended recipient if Belle can’t match up the out-of-order clues strewn throughout a high roller’s suite to form a crossword puzzle that will lead to the cash. Guest of honor at a puzzle convention near the Grand Canyon, Belle—with the help of her detective husband, Rosco—must unravel a murdered crossworder’s last puzzle and testament in “The Eraser’s Edge.” When a blizzard strands a five-woman sewing circle, a “Cross Stitch” in time could save—or destroy—reputations and lives if a puzzling truth about a dead heiress is revealed. .