The Toll Gate

 

By Georgette Heyer

Captain John Staple is finding life a bit flat after years spent fighting Napoleon on the continent. But the wars are over and the weather is miserable and John has become a little lost when he took the wrong road on his way to visit a friend in the country. And its gotten quite dark and the rain is unrelenting and he comes across a toll gate attended by only a young and frightened boy. John decides to spend the night at the toll station. 

So he stashes his horse in the station's chicken coop and makes himself at home in the station's living quarters. The boy, Ben, explains his dad left him in charge, saying he would be back in a couple hours. But he never came back. And the boy is very nervous, being alone at night and being in charge of the station. John feels sorry for Ben but that isn't why he decided to stay and help Ben. No, not at all. He decides to stay when he meets a young woman in the morning, Nell, and he is completely smitten. 

Nell is the granddaughter of the local squire and things are not going well for them. The squire, Sir Peter, is in very poor health and money is very tight. Staying with them is Sir Peter's heir Henry and Henry's friend Nate. Neither Nell nor anyone else in the household can figure out why Henry has showed up and what he and Nate are up to. And Nate has take a fancy to Nell and is constantly making up to her, despite her repeated expressions of dislike. Clearly things are not good at Sir Peter's home.

Meanwhile, after meeting Nell, John decides to stay at the toll station, and keep an eye on Ben and get to know Nell a bit more. As he learns more about Nell's and Ben's troubles, it becomes clear to him that something very fishy is going on involving Henry, Nate and Ben's missing father. And John is just the kind of person who enjoys a challenge like solving the mystery of the missing gate keeper and the mystery of the unwanted guests at Sir Peter's. Somehow the two are connected and the mystery becomes even more intriguing when a government man, a Bow Street Runner, shows up with lots of questions for the new gate keeper, John Staple.

I enjoyed this story quite a bit. It's more of a mystery story than a romance, although the romance between John and Nell provides the reason for John to stay at the toll station. It does take a bit of a grim turn with the discovery of the missing man's dead body. And the story is told from the point of view of John and not from that of his love interest, Nell. Still I did enjoy the story quite a bit, especially John's overseeing of young Ben's life and improving it in many ways, including better food and a cleaner home and just being there to keep Ben from being frightened at night. 

Here is a review by Laura A. Wallace on Austenprose.

Big Trouble

 

By Dave Barry

Arthur Herk finds out his employer is trying to have him killed the night the bullet misses and takes out his new TV. It happened the same night that Matt Arnold was trying to "kill" with a water gun his classmate, Jenny, who is Arthur's step-daughter. But when Matt squirted Jenny, her mom tackled him and started beating him up because the water gun looked like a real gun.

The police are called and the bullet hole is discovered and Arthur realizes he is in Big Trouble. So he comes up with a plan that involves buying a missile from a couple of shady Russians. But the buy is interrupted by two inept robbers who mistake Arthur for a drug kingpin and the missile for a hiding place full of drugs. Actually, the missile isn't a missile and if the two FBI agents tracking it can't get possession of it, everybody in the whole metro area is also in Big Trouble.

This was a fun read, full of silliness and suspense. Of course, Dave Barry isn't going to explode Miami, he's not that kind of author. Spreading death and misery is not his thing. Even so, it was really engaging to see how he manages to rescue the hero and bring the bad guys to justice. Except for the two hired killers who botched taking out Arthur in the first place. They get to go back to New Jersey and they have no intention of every coming back to Florida in the future.

Check out the review by Publishers Weekly.

The After Wife

 

By Gigi Levangie Grazer

Hannah was living her best life. When everything changed. The love of her life, John, was suddenly gone. Killed by a hit-and-run driver. Now she is all alone, except for their young daughter, Ellie. Well, not quite all alone. Because now her life is filled with ghosts that only she and Ellie can perceive. 

So here's Hannah trying to cope with widowhood and single parentage and unpaid bills and the mortgage and the fact that John failed to pay the premium on his life insurance. And here's an endless stream of ghosts with unfinished business who have urgent messages for the people they left behind.

This was a really good read. The beginning was sad and heartbreaking. And Hannah's struggle to stay strong for her little girl and try to keep hearth and home together was very touching. But things soon perk up when the ghosts start to appear and Hannah begins to pass on the messages the ghosts are so anxious for their friends and families receive. Really enjoyed this story.

Check out the review by Kirkus.

More Mad About Sports

 

By Frank Jacobs and Bob Clarke

Originally published in the 1970s, this funny look at sports and sports fans is still relevant today. It is very nicely illustrated by Bob Clarke. It has more than 10 chapters and includes sections like "The Pro Football Alphabet Book", "You Know Your Playing Days Are Numbered", and "Ten Years In The Life Of An Athlete". 

Here is a sample, from the chapter "If Sportscasters Said What They'd Like To Say": 

Ghost Moon

 

By Karen Robards

There is a kidnapper in southern Louisiana. He has taken several young girls who were never found again. 

After being away from her home in rural southern Louisiana for nearly a decade, Olivia has returned with her eight-year-old daughter, Sara. But her arrival is viewed by some as a bad thing and by others as a good thing. She is convinced to stay awhile and her daughter gets to know a girl about her age who is also living there, Chloe.

Olivia finds that she is developing feelings for Chloe's dad, Seth. Olivia and Seth didn't get along very well when she was a rebellious teen. But now that she has grown up a bit, she and Seth are getting along a lot better, despite the fact that Seth in engaged to be married in a few months. Added to that, Chloe, Seth's daughter, doesn't like Seth's fiancée and friction has been building up between the two. 

Meanwhile, there is the unresolved disappearances of several little girls about the same ages as Chloe and Sara. And Olivia's memory gaps relating to the time when she was a little girl and lost her mother who died  by drowning.

This was an OK story. I really didn't like the whole child murder part though. It was a gruesome frame for the story. But the author needed a traumatic event to give the child version of Olivia amnesia about the happenings of the night her mom died, I guess. 

Here is a review by Publishers Weekly.

The Leper of Saint Giles

 

By Ellis Peters

A big wedding is going to be held at Shrewsbury Abbey. It's a bit of a disgrace, though, as the bride is in love with someone else. And the groom is forty years older than the bride and is really only interested in her vast fortune and holdings. The bride, Lady Iveta is in love with one of the groom's attendants, Joscelin, a handsome young man in his early twenties. They have a plan to run away but then Joscelin is framed for theft. He escapes capture and goes and hides in the local leper hospital, Saint Giles.

Lady Iveta loses hope and the wedding is still on. But the morning of the wedding, the groom fails to show. He is found dead, subject of a trip wire that unhorsed him and he was then strangled by his attacker. Since Joscelin is on the loose, naturally everyone assumes he the killer. Unknown to the authorities, Joscelin was in the leper hospital the whole time where he is still hiding with the connivance of the lepers. Fortunately, the murderer was wearing a ring that poked his victim in the neck, leaving a clear mark. All they have to do is find the man who was wearing the ring that matches the mark. Of course, that man has removed his ring. But that is not going to save him. Because sooner or later, someone is bound to notice he has stopped wearing this rather distinctive ring.

Joscelin has not given up his plan to wed the woman he loves. He manages to get a message to her and she comes to join him. But someone either she or he has confided in has betrayed them and Joscelin is again captured. Lucky for them Cadfael has pretty much figured out who the killer really is and will step in to save the day for the lovers.

I enjoyed the story quite a bit even though the killer turns out to be the most logical choice and not much of a surprise. But Cadfael is just a fun character to read about, no matter the mystery he has to solve.

The Nine Tailors

 

By Dorothy L. Sayers

Lord Peter Wimsey, famous amateur detective, ends up in Fenchurch St. Paul when his car suffers a broken axle. While there, he gets to know the locals and even partakes in a bell ringing event. Bell ringing is a big deal in parts of Britain and the title of this book refers to a bell being rung nine times to announce the death of a man (not a woman or a child). While there, a local woman, Lady Thorpe, dies. Wimsey also hears about a robbery of an expensive necklace that caused the Thorn family much distress when it was revealed that their butler, Deacon, was involved. Deacon went to prison, along with his accomplice, Cranton and the Thorpes had to pay the woman whose necklace was stolen because she carried no insurance on it. The necklace was never recovered and it is assumed it was hidden in Fenchurch St. Paul by Cranton and/or Deacon. 

Wimsey's car is soon fixed and he is once again on his way. But a few months later Lord Thorpe also passes away. He had requested to buried in his wife's grave and when the dirt was removed from the grave, the body of a man was discovered to be in it on top of Lady Thorpe's coffin. The body's face is mashed in and the hands cut off and missing. Due to his passing acquaintance with the Thorpes, Wimsey is back in Fenchurch St. Paul to attend the funeral. But this unexpected body of course needs to be investigated and Wimsey is welcome by the local officials to help. He soon figures out that the dead man was held captive in the church bell tower.

Such care was taken to hid the dead man's identity. But discovering who he was is key to figuring out why he died. And it also may lead to tracking down the missing necklace. Which would be good news to the remaining Thorpe, a teenage girl, whose family finances were devastated by having to reimburse the owner of the necklace for its loss.

This was an OK story. The main problem is the bells. The author really liked writing about those bells and how they are rung in a mathematical progression. For example: 

"'The ninth lead should bring Queen's change—let me see, let me see—51732468, 15734286—that's the first thirds and fourths all right—51372468, 15374286—and that's the first fourths and thirds—13547826—ah! here is the trouble! The eighth should be at home. What has happened?—To be sure! What a beetle-headed cuckoo I am! He has forgotten to make the bob. She can't come home till she's called.' He ran a red-ink line down the page and started to write figures furiously. 'There! 51372468, 15374286—and now she comes home like a bird!—13572468. That's better. Now it should come round at the second repeat. I will just check it. Second to fifth, third to second—yes, yes—that brings 15263748, with Tittums at the end of the second course, and repeated once again brings it round. I will just jot down the lead-ends for him to check it by. Second to third, third to fifth, fourth to second, fifth to seventh, sixth to fourth, seventh to eighth, eighth to sixth for the plain lead. Then the bob. Plain, bob, bob, three plain and a bob.'"

This is just nuts. And annoying to read. Especially for those of us who don't know what change-ringing is. But Sayers did and I guess she loved it. 

Another thing that I didn't care for was how she [spoiler] brings a dead person back to life, in effect. We are told over and over that this person is dead, proven to be dead, in fact, no question about it. Dead, dead, dead. Not so dead, it turns out. 

 

Guilty, Guilty, Guilty!

 

By G.B. Trudeau

Daily strips from Doonesbury, dating from about 1973 to 1974. A fun look back at an era that is now ancient history for most people today.

Well, it's not ancient history for me because I was a young married woman back in the early 1970s. This is my long-gone youth. I enjoyed Doonesbury back then and I am enjoying revisiting Doonesbury fifty years later. 

The Lost and Found Bookshop

 

By Susan Wiggs

Natalie's life changed in every way in one day. She quit her job and lost her boyfriend and her mom later that same day. Now she has to take over her mom's affairs including running the family bookstore and taking care of her aging and senile grandfather.

Once she gets into her mother's affairs, she finds out that her mother owed lots of people lots of money. Most of which was spent on the ancient building the bookstore and the family apartments are located in. And the rest on keeping the bookstore running. Looking at all the problems with the building and the business, the obvious thing would be to close the bookstore and sell the building. But, contrary to what Natalie previously assumed, her mom did not own the business or the building. It is all owned by the grandfather. And he absolutely refuses to go along with Natalie's desire to sell everything. 

But the building needs some repairs. Parts of it are so bad, it would be condemned if it were ever inspected. Also, the downstairs apartment where the grandfather is living needs some assisted-living improvements. Enter "Peach" Gallagher, handyman, father, and all-around-good-guy. Not to mention just plain gorgeous. 

But Peach isn't the only handsome bachelor to enter Natalie's orbit. The other is personable, successful author Trevor Dashwood. And unlike Peach, Trevor is obviously strongly attracted  to Natalie. And proceeds to woo her while Peach looks on, once burned and twice shy after a painful divorce.

Often, in a romance story like this, the main barrier to the girl finding the right boy is the wrong boy the girl is usually involved with. If there is an interfering mother, usually the girl and mom work through their problems and come to a better understanding. And the girl dumps or loses the wrong boy friend and usually overlooks the right boyfriend until something causes her to realize he is the one. But not in this story. We never even get to meet the problematic mom or the wrong boyfriend. They are both bumped off in the beginning shortly after Natalie quits her job, killed in a plane crash. In  fact, they were probably already dead when she quit, although she did not know that. 

Also, in a lot of romances, the wrong boy is wrong because he is not a nice person. But that is not the case here. Both of the possible boyfriends are decent, good guys, as was the boyfriend who died. He also was a decent, good guy who in fact was planning on asking Natalie to marry him the same day that he died. The only thing that made him the wrong boy was that Natalie was no longer interested in him.

Anyway, these twists on the usual romance novel made it a lot more interesting to me and I really enjoyed the story. 

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

The Calculating Stars

 

By Mary Robinette Kowal

Early spring, 1952. Elma and Nathaniel are vacationing at a cabin in the Poconos when an meteorite strikes the earth just off the east coast of North America, causing catastrophic devastation. But even worse, scientists have calculated that the result of will be, first many years of winter, but then the planet will start to warm up. Eventually it will become so hot, that life will no longer be possible. It will become another Venus, in effect.

So the goal becomes getting to space and setting up colonies on the moon and then on Mars. Before that can be done, first they have to figure how to do that, starting with just getting off the Earth. 

Elma  and her husband, Nathaniel both already work for the space program. Nathaniel is an engineer and Elma is a "computer," someone who who is gifted mathematically and does the complex calculations required for launching a rocket into space. But as Elma observes that the preparations underway involve only white men, she decides she wants to be part of it too. Logically, if they are serious about humanity surviving off-world, then they have to have women off-world too. So women should be part of the astronaut program. But it's the 1950s and everything is run by white men. Women are considered too fragile and emotional to be astronauts. But Elma wants to prove that women are up to the job!

This was an OK read. It has a lot of technical stuff that I just didn't care about. In fact, I just skimmed through the last chapter as the author describes in detail the procedure for launching a rocket into space. 

Here is a review by Kirkus.

In Odd We Trust

 

By Dean Koontz

A graphic novel

Odd Thomas is a young man with a gift. He sees ghosts. The ghosts don't talk but they do seem to communicate to Odd at times.

Odd lives in a town in California and has a job working the grill in a small restaurant. He has a steady girl friend and he likes his job and he is also trusted and liked in his community. 

But tragedy visits small towns too. And Odd is seeing the timid ghost of a small boy. The boy was home alone when he was attacked and slaughtered. But it soon turns out the boy was just killed because he was in the way of the killer's real target, the babysitter. 

For some time the babysitter, Sherry, has been stalked by a stranger who sends her messages composed of letters cut out of magazines. Who this person is, Sherry has no idea. And the killer is still stalking Sherry and clearly doesn't mind committing murder to gain access to her. The only clue to the killer's identity is locked inside the silent, shy ghost of a small, murdered boy that only Odd can perceive.

This was an OK read. Being a graphic novel, it lacks the depth you usually find in an Odd Thomas story.  I'm not really a fan of manga-style illustrations, though. I think that affected my perception of the story.

According to Wikipedia, it's a prequel to the first Odd Thomas novel and was published in 2008. 

My Granddaughter Has Fleas!!

 

By Cathy Guisewite

Life of a single working woman, Cathy, in the 1980s who decides she is finally ready to become, not a mom, but the owner of a dog.

Electra is the new puppy and Cathy soon finds out that having a dog is almost as life-altering as having a baby. 

Meanwhile, her relationship with long-time boyfriend (eight years!) is going nowhere. Cathy wants to be married and Irving just isn't ready. 

I like the Cathy comic strip. I haven't subscribed to a newspaper in over twenty years so I don't even know if the strip is still being published.  But I always enjoyed reading Cathy back when we were getting a daily newspaper. Cathy always seemed kind of miserable and I totally related to that. And I still do.

Station Eleven

 

By Emily St. John Mandel

A deadly flu wipes out most of humanity. Only a small percentage survives. They struggle to survive and come together in small communities and bands. One of those bands is the Traveling Symphony which performs plays and concerts. They come to a community that they visited in the past, hoping to find two members who were staying there for a couple of years. But the place has changed and their friends are not there. It has been taken over by a cult, and their prophet is one of those gross dudes who has visions that instruct him to "marry" every female he lusts for his wives. Although the symphony was planning to stay awhile, this new cult gives them the creeps and they pack up and leave. But the prophets next intended bride, an adolescent girl, hides in one of the caravan wagons, giving the prophet the excuse he needs to chase after them.

Tying the story together is the tale of Arthur Leander, a famous actor who dies on stage of a heart attack during a play on the very night the plague came to America. One of the actors in the play is a little girl, Kirsten, who escapes the plague and, twenty years later, is one of the members of the Traveling Symphony. Art's life and that of his three wives winds through the story, with a graphic novel, Station Eleven, drawn and written by his first wife, Miranda, also bringing the characters' stories together. 

This was a pretty good read. I really found her style of writing to easy and enjoyable to read. She doesn't bog you down in complicated descriptions of scientific gobbledygook or boring descriptions of battles and wars. She also skips horrifying descriptions of the aftermath of the deadly epidemic, probably something that disappointed a lot of readers, maybe.

Here is a review by The Guardian.

Double Whammy

By Carl Hiaasen

R.J. Decker used to work for a large Florida newspaper as a photographer. But he got into trouble and landed in jail. After prison, he was jobless and wifeless and found work as an insurance investigator. 

Dennis Gault, wealthy man who wants to make a name for himself in the bass fishing tournament circles, hires R.J. to investigate Dickie Lockhart, a big name in the bass fishing world. Gault believes Lockhart has been cheating, planting prize-winning fish in the lakes during tournaments. He wants R.J. to get photos of Lockhart planting fish.

Lockhart's home base is in Harney County, Florida (not a real place). So R.J. heads there and does some sleuthing. A former associate from the newspaper also lives there, Ott Pickney. Ott dismisses Gault's claims that Lockhart is a cheater. But he does advise R.J. to hire a local man, Skink, to serve as a guide in the area. Ott also is the one who tells R.J. about the recent death of another pro-bass fisherman locally, Bobby Clinch. 

But after thinking about what R.J. told him, Ott decides to take a closer look at the remains of Clinch's bass boat. While doing so, he is found by a couple of thugs who take him into the woods and kill him. R.J. and Skink find Ott's body sunk in a lake. They are discovered by the thugs and Skink shoots and kills one of them. R.J. thinks Lockhart is behind the murders of Bobby and Ott and he and Skink head to Louisiana to catch Lockhart cheating at a big bass tournament there. But things don't pan out quite as they planned. They don't find Lockhart cheating, although they do find fish being planted. And the morning after the tournament, R.J. finds Lockhart dead. He is worried that Skink killed Lockhart because Skink had threatened to do exactly that. So instead of staying in Louisiana, R.J. drives back to Florida. Only to discover that he is being blamed for death of Lockhart. And that Skink had nothing to do with Lockhart's death.

This was a pretty good read. Unfortunately, like most of Hiaasen's Florida novels, it has some pretty gruesome scenes in it. The dog head business is pretty rank and Skink loses one of his eyes to a rather graphic beating. I always find that aspect of Hiaasen's stories a bit hard to take. But besides that, it was a pretty entertaining story and it is the first appearance of Hiaasen's recurring character, Skink, a wild man who lives off road kill and has no fixed home in the later novels and who used to be the governor of Florida.

Here is a review by Publishers Weekly.

Untold Story

 

By Genevieve Cogman

This is the eighth book in the Invisible Library series.

Irene Winters is a young librarian in the Invisible Library. The library is a storage place for the books of the multiverse. The worlds of this multiverse range from chaos and order, with the Fae being agents of chaos and the Dragons being agents of order. 

Irene has been sent to broker a treaty between the Fae and the Dragons, two groups that have long been enemies. Normally she travels the worlds looking for books that the library deems need its protection. So diplomatic missions are a bit out of her regular range of duties. 

For some time, Irene has been concerned about the great enemy of the library, her father, Alberich. Now she has come across an origin story that might help her finally bring Alberich down. But the story is incomplete and Irene sets out, accompanied by her lover, Kai, to track down the rest of the story. But has her search advances, it becomes clear that something rotten exists at the heart of the library, something that is distorting the main mission of the library from collecting and protecting books. And that rotten heart is willing to kill to protect its secret and to keep Irene from finding out the whole story.

This was an OK read. I came to the series unfamiliar with the first seven books in the series. It would probably make more sense and be much more enjoyable if the reader is acquainted with the preceding books. I felt a bit lost, trying to understand the magic and the relationships and the library's function.  Maybe that is why I found the book a bit boring. I also found the plot about the subversion of the library to be less than compelling.  

The Paradox Hotel

 

By Rob Hart

January Cole is the head of security at the Paradox Hotel. The hotel serves the wealthy time travelers who have paid big money to visit the past. January used to travel to the past too but now she is can no longer due to health concerns. Unfortunately, repeated trips to the past have a deleterious effect on the time travelers health. January is in danger of slipping into the final, last stage of being "Unstuck" where the sufferer becomes catatonic. Being this far along in the affliction means that sometimes January gets glimpses of the future and of the past. 

But there are big doings at Paradox Hotel because the government is going to sell the time travel business to private investors and the four main investors have checked into the hotel for meeting to determine who will gain ownership of the hotel and the time travel business. Not surprisingly though, someone has decided to try to gain an advantage by cheating and is willing to commit murder to do so. Which January realizes when she sees a dead man in one of the hotel rooms that no one else can see and it is clearly one of her frequent glimpses of times future and times past. And since she is the only one who can see this future, it is up to her to solve a murder that has not yet been committed.

I enjoyed this story quite a bit. Although I didn't care the ending, which seemed like a gyp for poor unhappy January, who is still mired in grief for her lost lover. Still, it was quite an interesting story. 

Review by Kirkus Reviews.

The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections

 

By Eva Jurczyk

Universities need donors. Donors provide funds for all kinds of perks and improvements. And when donors provide the funds for a university library to purchase a rare, old book, it is not unreasonable of them to want to see the book they paid for.  But the book in question has gone missing. And the only man who can tell the university where the missing book might be is unconscious in a hospital bed and is probably dying.

So Liesl Weiss has stepped into his position while he is in the hospital and has to deal with the disappearance of this $500,000 rare book. And she is being undercut on all sides by the university president and by many of the other members of the Department of Rare Books. Even though Liesl has been a part to the library staff for a nearly twenty years, for some reason, people (mostly the men) don't think she is up to the job of supervising the Department of Rare Books. 

So between trying to track down the missing book, coping with the donors, and trying to get the university president into contacting the police about the loss, Liesl is afraid she is not up to the job either.

This is not really a book about a mystery. It's really about a woman coping with a stressful job and dealing with her own doubts and insecurities. The missing book is just another source of stress for the woman. So even though it's not a real mystery story, it was still a pretty good read. 

Review from Kirkus Reviews.

Persephone Station

 

By Stina Leicht

Angel was forced out of the military and now she and her crew work for a local crime boss, Rosie, on the planet of Persephone. 

When Persephone was first settled, it appeared to be an abandoned planet with only ruins left by a long-gone civilization.

Turns out, though, this was not the case. The ruins were left by a race called the Architects. And they were the ones who raised up the current intelligent residents who call themselves the Emissaries. Although the Architects are vanished, the Emissaries remained but they prefer to keep themselves hidden. 

The corporation that now owns the planet has a deal with the Emissaries, they keep them hidden and the Emissaries provide them with advanced technology. But there has been a change of leadership at the corporation and the new leader has decided to just take what she wants by force from the Emissaries, who are a peaceful people and not accustomed to war.

The Emissaries have an ally on their side, the crime boss Rosie. And Rosie has hired Angel and her crew to travel to the Emissary city and protect them from being invaded by the obsessed woman who is leading the assault against them. 

This was an OK read. Unfortunately a large part of it concerns the battle between Angel's crew, the Emissaries and the corporate forces. Unfortunately I don't have any interest in reading a play-by-play of battlefield action. So I just skimmed large parts of the second half of the story. Outside of  battle stuff, the rest of it was pretty interesting. I did feel that the aliens were rather tame and bland and too human-like. 

A review by Kirkus Reviews.

Doonesbury : The President Is a Lot Smarter Than You Think

 

By G.B. Trudeau

A collection of Doonesbury cartoon stripes from the late 1960s and early 1970s. A trip back in time for those who grew up in that era and a visit to the past for those who didn't: a really fun read.

The Big Steep

 

By Sandra Balzo

The Big Steep is the name new arrivals Vivian and Philip have chosen for the tea shop they are planning to open in the childhood home of Vivian's mother, Vana. But during the innovation process, the body of a baby is found buried in a compost heap on the property. And in the course of a few days, two more people end up dead, starting with Vivian. 

So who killed Vivian? And why? Does it have anything to do with the dead baby? The baby's death was dated to the early 1960s, when Vivian's mother, Vana, was just a small child herself. So how could Vivian's murder possibly be connected to that of the baby?

Oh, the 1960s: free love, drugs, communes, hippies. All sorts of shenanigans. And Vana's parents were in the thick of it, even in the small town of Brookhills, Wisconsin. Who knows what skeletons will come to light now that the bones of an innocent child who was buried in a compost heap have been found?

This was an okay read. The blurbs on the front of the book and on the back are comparing it to the Laura Childs Tea Shop mystery series. I haven't read any of Childs' books, so if it compares or not, I don't know. I do know that it winds up in a complicated tangle of relationships dating back to the 1960s that I found rather hard to follow. A few too many plot twists are thrown at the reader in the space of a few pages.

Here is a review by Publishers Weekly.