Country Comes to Town

Richard is away on a trip to England, teaching a course on Shakespeare to Boston College students abroad. Laura is stuck home alone, finishing a big project at work. An old boyfriend shows up out of the blue and asks to stay with her. His wife had the good sense to throw him out. Laura refuses, but his body is found behind her building the next day, frozen to death. In the meantime, her cousin Thaddeous comes up for a surprise visit and is there when the police tell her of the death. Det. Salvatore isn't entirely sure that it was an accident. Laura's guilt over turning him away leads her to try and find out how he died. Did it have anything to do with the company that he helped to cofound? They were trying to kick him out, but who hated him enough to kill him?I really enjoyed this mystery. Thaddeous was always one of my favorite of the cousin characters, and Michelle is not just a voice on the phone in this one. The mystery wasn't all that difficult to figure out, but it was alot of fun getting there.

This is deeper and darker and better than "Trouble Looking for a Place to Happen." A theme of contrasts is evident, symbolized by country versus town and north versus south and emphasized in all sorts of subtle ways, even in the food (the ordering of pizza has an artistic purpose) An effective moment is when the newcomer is cheerfully shown the historic sights of Boston then arrives at his cousin's apartment to hear "Some bum froze to death back there. See you later. Here's my ride." The Southern belle heroine is a computer maven. The characters are often talented but flawed and ambiguous. Richard has been to see Hamlet.

This book wasn't as cute as the one right before (Trouble Looking For a Place To Happen)because Laura's funny husband Richard was not there in person, and only Thaddeus of the Byerly relations was present (the story taking place in Boston), but I found the mystery more gripping. Richard still features in it via phone calls and quotes more than Shakespeare, and you meet a suspicious, unbreakable group of Laura's former college friends, who have started a very elite and self-destructive company (SSI). The characters had more history and motive than previous Laura Fleming books, and an uncomfortable relationship that in ways made it more disconcerting investigating them for murder than it would be investigating friends (such as in Down Home Murder). Anyway, this book was pretty good and this series is quickly developing into a Southern delight. Oh, BTW, Thaddeus gets a Yankee girlfriend!