P is for Pluto

by Jackie Kingon

Molly is heading to Pluto. Send in the clones... Molly's Bistro is opening a new branch of the famous Martian restaurant on Pluto. But the opening is delayed when their chef is murdered. With the Pluto Police taking a relaxed approach to crime, Molly heads to Pluto to help crack the case and get the restaurant back on track. But she will have to face clone confusion, kidnapping chocolatiers, and the spice mafia if she is to solve this mystery. This sequel to Jackie Kingon's Sherlock Mars contains the same mixture of science fiction, mystery, and humor that made her previous book a success.

Genres: Science Fiction

272 pages, Paperback

Published November 8, 2019

About the author

SHERLOCK MARS is my second sci-fi comic mystery. It is published by Guardbridge Books in St. andrews, Scotland. Kirkus Review said “An undeniably fun tale with a protagonist who can apparently handle anything…”A first book, CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE MOONS was called “delightful” by Kirkus Review.

I wrote a feature piece in the NEW YORK TIMES about an inner city school called A Year in the Trenches and Beautiful Music, about her son diagnosed with autism and now is a professional musician. Other non fiction articles have appeared in journals for autism and learning disabilities.

Education: Masters Degree from Columbia University Teachers College in New York City; a Bachelor of Arts from Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The School of Visual Arts in New York City.
CHECK OUT MY WEB SITE www.jackiekingon.com

Other activities:
Member of the Empire State Art Plaza Commission Albany NY
Friends of Vassar College Art Museum
Member Autism Awareness

Reviews

[Suzanne]

When I was a kid, Pluto was my favorite planet - and I was so sad when it was "downgraded". I'll always have affection for Pluto, so I was predisposed to like this book! The basic premise is that the head chef of a soon-to-open franchise restaurant is killed on Pluto. Molly Marbles goes to investigate, along with her friend Jersey. Pluto is so fun to "explore". Most of the story takes place in the town of Valentine, which has streets like Aorta Avenue. The whole book is full of clever plays on words and puns, so if you dislike that kind of thing, this is probably not the book for you - however, I enjoyed it and smiled throughout. I also liked the references to Earth "history" and life and food on all the different planets. The predicted tech advances are fun too - this one explores cloning among other things.

I'd like to thank the author for giving me a copy of the book to review. It was fun reading such a clever story!

[Hunter Shea]

The third Molly Marbles mystery brings the fun and funny, this time all the way out to Pluto, a planet with an inferiority complex. Who knew opening a new restaurant on a distant planet could be so difficult? Jackie Kingon brings a delightful mix of scifi, humor and whodunnit to the world (Earth in this case). A wonderful read.

[Jay Batson]

Jackie Kingon has delivered yet-another pun-filled whodunnit set off-planet, filled with food and fun times.

The core characters from her books - Molly, Cortland and Jersey - reprise their roles in this new story. This tale is set on Pluto (yes, the planet), which is given a real frontier-like culture: Try anything, and go fast to get ahead. And trying anything includes ... cloning people, which provides a nice anchor around which the Molly's amateur murder sleuthing revolves.

And as her other books, the humor comess fast and furious. Examples:

I spoke to lawyers at Shark and Shark and got advice.

... winner of the Pickled Pepper Award, Peter Piper who will pick a peck of pickled peppers while performing 'Peppers from Heaven'.

We travel on the Mars-Pluto shuttle. It's names the Titanic. Something about that name makes me nervous, but Jersey is sure it was named after Saturn's largest moon, Titan, and can't understand my concerns.

And more - like the name of Main Street in the main town is the "Carotid Artery".

But don't let the relentless humor fool you. There are some super-insightful comments that will surprise you, like these:

Economists want to float a cryptocurrency ... to accelerate funding .... But most, even after hundreds of years, don't trust their value nor fathom how they work.

Money and love are two big motivators (for murder. -jb) .... And money can be the enemy of truth.

As always, reading a book by this author should be done when you need a break from seriousness. When you want a book where the story moves fast, the content is light-hearted, and where the end of the story isn't the point of the read; the journey is. And since I read this during the height of the COVID-19 lockdown in April 2020, light-reading was a welcome distraction.

[Bob]

Let me state right away that this series does not aspire to be great literature. But it IS excellent light-hearted reading for a rainy afternoon.

It's the latest in a series of interplanetary mystery novels which blend elements recalling Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum stories (characters called Trenton and Jersey are a bit of a give-away here!) with a barrage of puns and groan-worthy jokes worthy of (and perhaps inspired by?) Piers Anthony's Xanth cycle - I mean, a villain-cum-victim chef called Herb Tarragon?

The said Mr Tarragon has been murdered on clone-ridden Pluto where our heroine, Molly Marbles (pace Agatha Christie), restauranteuse and part-time detective, is visiting from Mars to open a new franchise of Molly's Bistro. Herb Tarragon, has been knifed in the back, and Molly determines to find out whodunnit. But was it really Herb, or one of his clones? And what was the motive?

The story is laced with interesting little nuggets of information, as well as prime examples of history presented as a series of distorted-by-time "Chinese Whispers." I mean, did you know that "Times Square" was probably an irrational number?

Part of the fun is, in fact, separating what is reasonable scientific speculation (e.g. an interesting use of Maglev technology to build floating structures reminiscent of a Plutonian Venice) from items that are purely the product of Ms Kingon's vivid imagination.

For myself, I liked the mixing of these little hard-SF nuggets with the fun and froth of the main narrative. I suspect Ms Kingon is, like me, an avid reader of both fact and fiction.

I enjoyed this, as I enjoyed its predecessor Sherlock Mars. As I said, ideal for curling up with on a rainy afternoon!

[S.J. Higbee]

Don’t let the fact that you haven’t read the previous two books in the series worry you – they are only very loosely linked and some time has gone by since the previous case, anyway, so you shouldn’t flounder if you crash midway into this series. I read quite a lot – but I can safely say that Kingon’s quirky mix of humour and space opera sci fi is completely original. To be honest, while the investigation bubbles along and is clearly the narrative drive for the story, it is more of a reason why Molly and eventually her family pitch up on Pluto. I didn’t really care all that much about who killed Herb Tarragon, although the denouement and explanation for the crime is well handled and it concludes entirely satisfactorily.

For me, the draw of this book and the reason why I kept turning the pages, was to find out what Molly and her two sidekicks, Trenton and Jersey would get up to, next. It’s an oddly uneven book. The characterisation is sketchy, as there are times when I would have liked to know more about Molly’s thoughts, particularly when she is in danger, which is frequently. There are random time jumps when days pass and we have no idea what the characters are doing – the sort of detail the picky editor in me notices and normally would make me seriously consider tossing the book aside in disgust. But I don’t. Because Kingon’s superpower is the weird blend she achieves when scene setting, managing to deliver a layered world and a lot of facts about it, wrapped up with some humorous asides including a fair dollop of science – often with a punning joke. Likewise, her world has entertainment, with stars and personalities, who are alluded to, along with historical details which are often comically wrong. I am struck by how much lighter her humorous touch is in this offering, which occasionally had me laughing out loud.

Molly is a foodie and while there are plenty of chocolate moments – there is nonetheless a slight bite to the writing which I really enjoyed. Molly’s friends, who often accompany her, are clearly loyal and concerned for her safety – but that doesn’t stop them freeloading wherever possible. Her twin daughters are very vain and her husband is a workaholic, but that’s alright, because so is Molly… Recommended for fans of quirky cosy mysteries set in space. The author provided me with a review copy, in return for an honest opinion of the book.
8/10

[TammyJo Eckhart]

This is the third book in the Molly Marbles Mystery series but I feel like I've missed books that show Molly growing or withdrawing from being an amateur sleuth in the cozy mystery style. At one point, without spoiling anything, Molly's husband complains that she is always drawn toward solving crimes yet in many ways, I felt like this mystery didn't need her to be solved when technology and her android acquaintance, Trenton, seems to do most of the fact finding. So is Molly's husband lying to her and us with his comment? What other mysteries has she solved and why are her friends more active in the investigations? Those questions could be answered in one or two books set between Sherlock Mars and P is for Pluto.

The worldbuilding is great; it is clear that author Jackie Kingon keeps up on science and history and loves to subvert them for comedic purpose or mystery plot points. I just wish that the paragraphs and a couple of pages telling us about the world were more worked into the mystery solving as I recall was done with the other two books in the series.

Ultimately I'm glad I read this book but I didn't like it as much as Chocolate Chocolate Moons or Sherlock Mars, the first two books in the series. I would happily read books set between the second and third book to learn what happens in Molly's life that seems to have impacted her sleuthing so much and grown her relationship with a couple of friends into a trio of detectives in terms of their value to the solutions to the twists and turns in the murder cases that keep finding her.

I was sent a free copy of this novel by the author in the hopes that I would write a review; no other form of compensation was received.

[Simon Leonard]

Great book

I read one of Jackie's other books, Sherlock Mars previously so knew her writing style and knew that I would enjoy this one. Even though it is book 3 you don't really need to have read either of the other 2, although it helps to work out the characters and stuff they refer back to.

The book follows Molly as she heads to pluto to open another new restaurant at the end of the solar system. Before she heads out there her new chef is murdered so she decides to investigate as the Pluto police don't care.

The book has the same humour as previous ones and the mystery side of it was really well done.

[Dennis]

Very light, but fun. SF mysteries are hard to write, because we don't know all the rules up front, and Kingon did a good job of giving us the pieces we need well in advance, and leaving us to sort through the rest on our own.

The book is rife with puns and dad jokes, but Kingon sneaks some real science in there, so you might learn things while you aren't looking :-)

[Stefanie Nici]

Out of This World

Science fiction blended with a murder mystery along with fun name play (such as Herb Tarragon) made P is for Pluto quite an enjoyable read for me. I laughed out loud a few times.