A Case of Imagination: A Madeline Maclin Mystery

It is difficult for a former beauty queen to achieve respect as a private investigation. Madeline Maclin is determined to make her career work. He former employer does not make things easy for her. He flirts with her and steals her clients. Jerry Fairweather is from a wealthy family. He has rejected any claim to the family fortune. Instead, he is establishing himself as a psychic. Mac and Jerry travel to Celosia, NC, to see the house he inherited from his uncle, Val Eberlin. They arrive to find protesters picketing a local beauty pageant parade. Soon Mac is investigating both the pageant and a haunted house. Jerry takes a liking to the house and wants to open a Psychic Shop. Strange things are happening in Celosia: ghosts, missing food, and a murder. Mac and Jerry discover things that endanger their life. A Case of Imagination by Jane Tesh is an amusing read. Ms. Tesh has a unique talent for combining humor and mystery. The plot is well developed and has enough twists and turns to make you think you are driving up a mountain road. Lead character Medeline Maclin tells the story from her perspective. Mac slowly discovers her true feelings for Jerry. Their friendship is heartwarming. He and Mac play perfectly off each other. The characters in A Case of Imagination are crazy and fun. Jerry is charming and eccentric. Fans of mystery will not want to miss this one.

With the Holidays driving me crazy, this book was a fun escape. The characters are well developed and you are drawn into their wacky lives. It's a tight plot and you won't get lost if you need to put it down for a day or if you can only pick it up for a few minutes each day. I was surprised that I could get into a book about Pageants, they are certainly not of any interest to me in real life but I enjoyed the venue in the book. A fun read!

A friend recommended this book to me and I just finished it. It turned out to be a fun and captivating mystery-romp through the world of a small-town "beauty" pageant. The reader is kept guessing throughout which of this collection of characters might have had a motive to commit a murder (it seems any one of them could). All this is through the eyes and voice of the main character--Madeline, ex-beauty queen turned sleuth--who has two concurrent agendas: find the murderer and fer God's sake profess her love and enfatuation with her best buddy, Jerry. (SAY IT, MADELINE! JUST SAY IT!). Great fun--I see that there's another in the series on the way; I look forward to it.