Do Not Open: 11/18/24

Do Not Open by Brinton Turkle (1981) is a picture book that shares tropes with the paranormal cozy mysteries I read. Miss Moody lives by herself near the ocean in an area prone to flotsam and jetsam. She fills her house with the best things she finds.

When looking for treasure, one runs the risk of finding trouble or danger. If this were a cozy mystery, Miss Moody would have found a dead body. Instead, she finds a bottle with instructions: Do not open. Miss Moody like your typical amateur sleuth, doesn't leave it alone; she opens it.

It's the same as investigating. The amateur sleuth can avoid having the killer go after them by leaving the investigating to the police. For the sleuth, it's a mixture of ethics and distrust of authority. For Miss Moody, I suppose it's curiosity and self reliance.

The bottle contains a wish granting monster who thrives on bringing chaos and strife to the world. Miss Moody does make a wish — a very practical one. It's so practical, so mundane, that the monster doesn't even acknowledge it as a wish.

Miss Moody, like a typical cozy mystery protagonist, has a pet. She has a cat. Captain Kidd is an excellent mouser. It's not much compared to some. He's not Owen, Hercules, or Micah. But he is her cat and he knows how to protect her.

With some ingenuity on Miss Moody's part because being able to out think the villain, or in this case, monster, is part of being a cozy mystery protagonist, she tricks the monster into becoming something manageable. See, one common trait in cozy mystery murderers is their arrogance and their braggadocio. That's always what gets the ones that love to tell all to the amateur sleuth.

And the cat saves the day. Not only for Miss Moody but for the whole world. There's no putting him back in the bottle. There's no risk that he'll get free again. He's gone for good. He's one of those cozy mystery villains who go too far, so far that they end up dead.

Five stars

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