A Fine Night for Dying

"The Butterfly Farm" is a Christian mystery novel about discovering the whereabouts of several kidnapped girls. For the reader, it's not so much figuring out who did it or how but in seeing how Harriet MacIver will figure it out. The clues were very obvious, and (this was a group read) all three of us readers had the "who done it" and why figured out long before Harriet did. I found Harriet's personality and lack of cleverness rather frustrating, but this wasn't due to lack of good writing. The novel was well-written, with excellent world-building, interesting and complex characters, and very good pacing and suspense. We eagerly kept reading because we wanted to know how Harriet solved the mystery. The "problem" was that Harriet was naive and very trusting of even those she suspected might be bad guys. I wanted to shake some sense into her (though I'm not sure how shaking helps) every time she told important, life-or-death secrets to people she suspected might be bad guys just because she saw some good in them and they offered to help. If she was a young woman, I'd be more willing to accept and even enjoy this character trait, but she's old enough to have adult kids and so I expected her to have a bit more discernment. My other disappointment was the Christian content. It annoyed me that every time Harriet was about to do something illegal and/or very foolish (due to not thinking out the consequences), she'd pray to God to help her get away with it. This wasn't being presented as something one ought to do or even that it helped her, but I was frustrated that she never realized what she was doing. She also seemed to think she wasn't breaking the law simply because she did it to help other people. Though the novel was not preachy, there were enough prayers and Christian talk that non-Christians probably wouldn't enjoy it. There was no sex. There was a very minor amount of bad language. This mystery novel would probably appeal most to those who don't mind somewhat-bumbling amateur detectives and don't primarily read mysteries for the challenge of figuring out who-done-it. Overall, the novel was well-written, clean reading. Reviewed by Debbie from Genre Reviews (genrereviews. blogspot. com)

I ordered this book for my father who is in his 80's and finds it hard to read "normal sized" print in books. He loved this book and plans to order more large print books in the near future.

In her first book in the Harriet MacIver Mystery series, veteran faith fiction novelist Diane Noble tackles a heady mix of murder and scientific research gone awry against the lush backdrop of Costa Rica. The just-widowed Harriet MacIver is a brand new travel writer with a fear of flying and destined to be the next big thing in the travel world. Harriet doesn't go anywhere without her lumbering, 20-pound-plus scary feline named Gus (short for asparagus). When her assigning editor at the Town Crier newspaper sends her (and Gus) to cover a Costa Rican cruise on a rusty tub of a ship, the Sun Spirit, she's saddled with the dual task of keeping an eye on the editor's college-age daughter, Carly Lowe. It's a long way from the glamorous assignment Harriet envisioned. A murder on board is a grim foreshadowing of what's to come. Things get nastier when Carly doesn't turn up after a trip ashore, and, as Harriet discovers, she's not the first girl to disappear in Costa Rica from Carly's Florida college. Then Kate Rivers, a classmate, also disappears. And their frumpy fellow student Zoë Shire seems to know more than she's telling. Two rather dashing older men are on Harriet's radar screen: one a Nobel Prize contender for his scientific research (can you see what's coming here?) and another who has a checkered past and a poignant story. When the trail of the missing girls leads to a butterfly farm, Harriet must decide which man to trust. And if she makes the wrong choice, the consequences will be deadly. Noble portrays Harriet MacIver as a cross between Dorothy Gilman's Mrs. Pollifax and Agatha Christie's Miss Marple. Christie's Miss Marple is fond of saying she learns everything she knows from observing life in a small English village; Harriet likes to point out that "Raising a family teaches you a lot about life, things like passion for what matters and stick-to-it-iveness to see a project through." Mrs. Pollifax is a previously depressed grandmotherly detective with a penchant for hats who travels the globe for the CIA; Harriet is a slightly depressed grandmotherly travel writer with a love for a ballcap (emblazoned with "You Go, Girl") who visits exotic locales as part of her work. Unlike Pollifax and Marple, however, MacIver flies airplanes and is up front and out there with her Christian faith. Noble incorporates the repeating motif of the poisonous blue morpho butterfly throughout the book, which is a great touch mystery aficionados will appreciate. However, the reader is required to suspend disbelief on several plot points --- that the disappearing popular and attractive girls from the same college would all share a common blood type and genetic markers, just for starters. There are some lovely passages ("Ribbons of gray mist and fog clung to the dark water") but the story could have benefited from a good tightening of at least 50 pages, if not more, and the action slows in places. Yet it's always refreshing to have the central character be

Working for the San Francisco Town Crier magazine as a travel writer, widow Harriet McIver is sailing on the cruise ship Sun Spirit towards Costa Rica. Her boss asks Harriet to keep an eye on her niece, Carly Lowe, on the tour also as part of a student contingency from Sheperton College. When Carly fails to return to the vessel, no one except her roommate Zoe Shore and Harriet seem worried. That night, passenger Harry Eason is found dead in a swimming pool with the deadly, if swallowed in large quantities, blue morpho butterfly nearby. Former SFPD Detective Adam Hartsfield is on board working a private investigation, but seems disinterested in the death though he tells Harriet that the victim was a sleuth who rescued youngsters from cults. As the vessel stops for time at a nearby health spa with a famous butterfly farm, Harriet knows something sinister has happened to Carly and plans to find and rescue the teen. Though the suspense takes a while to get started, THE BUTTERFLY FARM is a terrific amateur sleuth thriller that once the accelerator is pressed takes off and never slows down until the final twist. Harriet is a noble protagonist, a West Coast Jessica Fletcher refusing to back down in spite of warnings especially from Adam and understanding how treacherous the situation is. The look at Costa Rica enhances a wonderful tale starring a heroine who not only keeps the plot focused, but deserves future travelogues for armchair mystery aficionados. Harriet Klausner

harry paterson at his best