One Large Coffin to Go

by H. Mel Malton

In the fourth Polly Deacon mystery, pregnant and grumpy, Polly yearns to escape the increasingly annoying advice of family and friends. When an opportunity comes up to travel to England to attend a puppetry conference, she jumps at it, in spite of her "delicate condition". The trouble starts when someone tries to steal her luggage at the airport, and by the time she arrives in Canterbury, she knows someone's stalking her. When another woman is...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1894917014
• ISBN13: 9781894917018
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Napoleon and Co
• Length: 265 Pages
• Weight: 0.71 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Provocative, engaged, and brilliant

H. Mel Malton was born in England, but grew up in Bracebridge, Ontario. She has been a touring actor and stage manager, a government forms designer, a reporter, waitress, receptionist, clerk,secretary, and singing teacher. She currently lives in a log cabin with her two dogs. She has published short stories, articles, crime stories, and several Polly Deacon novels.Polly Deacon, like her creator, lives in a log cabin. But she finds herself pregnant, and her cop boyfriend doesn't seem to want to take on the added responsibilities of being a father. Polly is a Renaissance woman and dislikes advice, which creates an unreasonable amount of hostility from the man whose engagement ring she wears on a chain around her neck and not yet on her finger:"'Your grip on reality appears to be getting loose,' Becker said. 'Here you are, playing baby dolls in a shack in the bush, and meanwhile, there's a real baby growing inside you, and you're planning to go on a trip to God knows where, and once again, all you're thinking of is yourself and nobody else.'"In this unsettled state, Polly boards a plane for a puppetry conference in historic Canterbury, England. Almost immediately, she is beset by thugs who try to steal her secondhand puppet case in the airport at both ends, while Polly is hilariously trying to get herself together to go to the conference in her pregnant state...accompanied by the Sprog...her unborn child. Trouble seems to follow her everywhere she goes, and she stubbornly refuses to believe that someone would want to hurt her until she realizes the awful truth after a kindred spirit she has just met is murdered.H. Mel Malton has a wonderfully dry sense of humor, even as she exposes an intelligent and vulnerable writing style. Polly Deacon is an unlikely heroine, as she is constantly bumbling about, but there is a sort of inspired genius to her eccentricity, and she is more loved than she knows.One Large Coffin to Go is an inspired plot full of twists and turns; characters who are fun and well conceived; a hilarious banter of Polly's thoughts; and a bittersweet ending borne of life's imperfections. Malton's writing is sheer joy. She is provocative, engaged, and brilliant.Shelley GlodowskiReviewer

her latest

I've followed H. Mel's books from the very beginning. The character Polly Deacon is sure to be a Canadian superhero. She's different from the rest of the world she lives in as a puppeteer and now as a single woman she's pregnant. In Polly's latest adventure she's traveling to England to present at a puppet conference. She is quickly tailed and her puppet case becomes a constant interest to some looney who pops up in airports, trains and graveyards trying to make off with it! Then a woman, who bares a strong resemblance to Polly --inlcuding pregnancy, turns up dead in a local English church. Will Polly be next?This book isn't Mel's ultimate book in the series but it is a fabulous page turner and well worth the time.If you like to laugh with your heroine and care about her at the same time I highly suggest you start at the beginning of the series and add each book in turn! Her writing is brisk, believable and oh so Canadian!

Polly Does Canterbury

Fans of H. Mel Malton's DOWN IN THE DUMPS, CUE THE DEAD GUY, and DEAD COW IN AISLE THREE will be happy to find the latest in her series. In ONE LARGE COFFIN TO GO, back-to-the-lander Polly Deacon, pregnant from knees to chin, leaves her cozy Ontario cabin to travel to England for a puppetry conference. Undecided about moving in with her Mountie boyfriend Mark Becker, and regarding any advice as a challenge, she packs her bags for a week in the old country. As soon as Polly reaches the airport, sinister signs appear. Was someone trying to steal her luggage, full of expensive models? As a favour, she also carries the ashes of Becker's father, which he's asked her to scatter off Beachy Head to fulfill the old man's last wish. Landing in London, another attempt is made to snatch her baggage. Is she just unlucky or a target? Once in Canterbury, the seat of English Christianity, Polly settles into a quaint B and B and procedes to play tourist. A Right to Life march has the citizens on the streets, and she meets Alma, pregnant as well, determined to voice her Choice position despite the danger. Sadly, Alma's body is found bludgeoned at Becket's shrine and suddenly Polly begins to fear for the Sprog wriggling inside her. Malton's tongue-in-cheek humour and ability to laugh at herself and her heroine charge this book with smiles and outright laughter as Polly discovers the differences between Canucks and Brits. The scene with the woman speaking into a cell phone, saying, "I'm on the trine, dear" comes to mind. Her descriptions of the lovely cathedral town are as insightful as the best travelogues, with a tense and twisting plot to match. Of course every woman would identify with the challenges of the last months of pregancy, and she pokes a few sacred cows along the way. Is Guinness really 'good for you'? Canada's National Post newspaper calls her "the funniest of the new detectives." A fascinating study of modern and ancient puppetry adds to the delight. And just when the reader thinks the last page is turned, an unexpected and strange romance takes wing.