In Jessica Grant’s hilarious novel Come, Thou Tortoise (Knopf), Audrey Flowers, who was raised by her father and her uncle in an unorthodox household, returns to Newfoundland to be with her father, who has hit his head and fallen into a coma. There she encounters several mysteries that require her to fall back on her extensive experience playing the board game Clue.

She leaves behind (in Oregon) her pet tortoise, Winnifred, who narrates her own part of the story, and in New