Big Little Lies meets Insecure in Elise Bryant's frantically funny mystery The Game Is Afoot. It marks the second time that amateur sleuth Mavis Miller--who, when it's convenient, defaults to "code-switching, nice accommodating Black person"--finds herself up against not only a criminal element but a force almost as formidable: entitled Southern California moms.
It's soccer Saturday and narrator Mavis is cheering on her daughter when Coach Cole collapses, clutches his chest, and dies. Two days later, detectives question Mavis about what she saw on Saturday--it seems that Coach Cole didn't die of a heart attack as Mavis had assumed. The detectives also want to speak with Mavis's ex-husband, Saturday's snack parent, who brought Capri-Suns: the coach drank from a pouch that was later found to contain sodium nitrite residue. Mavis knows she should be looking for work--she has recently "rage-quit" her job at a nonprofit--but she decides to throw her energies into finding Coach Cole's killer instead.
The Game Is Afoot offers a decent mystery and a truly delicious send-up of the self-care industry and modern parenting (the kids get not goody bags but "enrichment bags"). There's lots of fun stuff here about Mavis's effort to deal with the stressors in her life--she's sorely tempted by the "woo-woo nonsense" pushed by the wellness-embracing moms in her midst. Some of Mavis's stress originates from the oft-referenced events of this novel's predecessor, It's Elementary, which readers would do well to tackle to get the most from this pleaser. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer