GOODBYE MS. CHIPS (Dorothy Cannell)

One of the most significant details of Cannell's "Ms. Chips", a cozy mystery,  is that the murder doesn't take place until page 200, more than 2/3 of the way through the book!  Interior decorator Ellie Haskell is called back to her childhood boarding school (not a place of happy memories) to help find the missing Loverly Cup, an athletic trophy.  When Ms. Chips, the retired games mistress at St. Roberta's (and whose nose Ellie once broke with an ill-aimed lacrosse ball), is found dead under suspicious circumstances, the search for the pilfered trophy becomes secondary to discovering her murderer.  Ellie and her housekeeper, Mrs. Malloy, are an appealing team.  This is the 13th entry in this series and the reader will have no trouble keeping up with the characters since Cannell does a good job of introducing each of them.  The plot is slow-moving (page 200??), but overall the novel was not bad.