Widow Rose Kaplan, resident of the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors, prides herself on making the best maztoh balls. Each year for Passover, the Home has a contest for the best Matzoh balls, and again Mrs. Kaplan wins. As everyone is starting their Passover Seder -- supper -- suddenly a commotion occurs, people are shouting: a server has knocked over plates and spilled soup on a table. Everything quiets down, but suddenly someone notices that Bertha Finkelstein, who was sitting alone, has her face in her soup bowl. And she is unfortunately quite dead.

Two detectives arrive, one looking like Lieutenant Columbo, the other like Detective Chief Inspector Dalgleish, and they inform the distraught residents that the unfortunate Mrs. Finkelstein choked on a diamond earring, which belonged to elder fashionista Daisy Goldfarb. Mrs. Goldfarb had earlier on that day reported her earrings missing. Mrs. Finkelstein's untimely demise appears a bit too closely linked with Mrs. Kaplan's soup; Rose finds herself a bit too high on the list of suspects and she decides to look into the matter herself with the help of her long-time friend, Ida Berkowitz, to whom we owe the retelling of this dreadful incident.

MRS. KAPLAN AND THE MATZOH BALL OF DEATH is exactly what I hoped it would be: a cozy murder mystery and the Jewish humour I love; I knew I was going to love it from the very first page. The story is ingenious, extremely entertaining, and the ending surprisingly quite unpredictable. The characters -- even the minor ones -- are colourful, fun, and absolutely genuine: we've all known someone like at least one of them. I particularly enjoyed that the narrator is Mrs. Berkowitz; she is Watson to her friend's Sherlock, and the voice is perfect. It's also extremely well-written and the characters speak and act like people their age, in a realistic way. There are several very amusing passages, and the section that leads to the conclusion is totally hilarious!

MRS. KAPLAN AND THE MATZOH BALL OF DEATH was a most pleasant discovery for me and I'm very much looking forward to further adventures of the delightful Mrs. Kaplan and her cohort Mrs. Berkowitz!

Book Summary

Move over, Miss Marple—Mark Reutlinger’s charming cozy debut introduces readers to the unforgettable amateur sleuth Rose Kaplan and her loyal sidekick, Ida.
 
Everyone knows that Rose Kaplan makes the best matzoh ball soup around—she’s a regular matzoh ball maven—so it’s no surprise at the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors when, once again, Mrs. K wins the honor of preparing the beloved dish for the Home’s seder on the first night of Passover.
 
But when Bertha Finkelstein is discovered facedown in her bowl of soup, her death puts a bit of a pall on the rest of the seder. And things go really meshugge when it comes out that Bertha choked on a diamond earring earlier stolen from resident Daisy Goldfarb. Suddenly Mrs. K is the prime suspect in the police investigation of both theft and murder. Oy vey—it’s a recipe for disaster, unless Rose and her dear friend Ida can summon up the chutzpah to face down the police and solve the mystery themselves.