East of Peculiar

I read "South Of Sanity", the sequel to this book first. Even though it's easy enough to follow the story line if read out of sequence, I think reading this one first gives the reader a little bit better insight into the secondary characters...and glorious characters they are! Janet Evanovich is the only other author that comes to mind with the ability to interweave a good mystery along with a heroine with interesting but flawed looks, and a mouth like Phyllis Diller (she even THINKS funny!). Throw in a hunky hero that's in law inforcement who looks just like________ (fill in the blank with your personal favorite action hero). Top off with another hero that is a bit off-beat. Okay, here's a clue. He's old enough to be an escort for blue haired ladies, but you just want to jump into the pages of this book and slather him with kisses and hug him to death! Top off with a group of elderly, pot-smoking matrons wanting to help our heroine & hero solve the mystery and you have all the ingredients for a ton of laughs, some breath-holding moments and a hot romance that keeps getting hotter. Can't ask much more from a book than that! One complaint.....have to wait until December, 2001 for the 3rd in this series. Ah well, I know the wait will be worth it!

Suzann Ledbetter has done it again, this time with a rip-roaring mystery -- her first -- and I'm looking eagerly forward to the others in the series! Who killed the retired schoolteacher with her own rolling pin? Hannah, the new caretaker of Valhalla Springs, an upscale retirement community, is confronted with the body before she has her bags unpacked. What's a girl to do? Solve it, of course, although this is somewhat difficult when the community's computer system has been "requisitioned" by the mother of its owner, people keep making extra keys to the locks on your front door, well-meaning residents insist on "fixing" your plumbing and electrical appliances -- badly -- and the rinse you just put on your hair has turned it flaming red.Hannah meets her intellectual match in David, the solid-as-rock, handsome (and totally yummy) sheriff. Helped and hindered by a wonderfully detailed cast of quirky old-agers and townspeople, this delightful hero and heroine try to solve the crime and end up falling for each other. EAST OF PECULIAR is full of the flavor of the Missouri Ozarks, observed by a master storyteller with a keen eye and ear, right down to the nuances of spoken language and the inner workings of a small Missouri town. I simply loved this book! It's a terrific mystery that's cheeky and surprising, warm and witty, and I read it in two sittings. I can't wait to see what Hannah and David will get up to next!

EAST OF PECULIAR is Suzann Ledbetter's first mystery (she is author of a dozen other books including a biography, 10 novels and 2 humor books) and its a funny and involving story set in the Missouri Ozarks, a place the author knows intimately. Readers are going to love Hannah Garvey, the former ad exec in Chicago who throws over that life to manage a retirement home deep in the Ozarkian hills. There is a murder there and Hannah and the local sheriff become involved in the solution to the crime and inevitably become involved with each other. Ledbetter is a terrific character-creator and has a lot of fun, as readers will, with her cast of retirement home characters, all turning amateur sleuths to "help" solve the crime at Valhalla Springs.

Like the first swim of summer, Suzann Ledbetter's EAST OF PECULIAR is a refreshing splash of laughter, romance and mystery! Hannah has had it. Kissing her high-pressure advertising executive job in Chicago goodbye, she says hello to Valhalla Springs, a retirement community in the Missouri Ozarks. Thinking she's found a place to rest and recoup, Hannah instead finds herself in the deep-end of a murder with an unlikely victim, and way over her head with the handsome local sheriff! I found myself laughing out-loud while reading of Hannah's predicaments and her wry view on life. As a newly turned forty-year old woman myself, I related to this 43-year-old heroine's 'younger-man' dilemma. I also loved the various residents at Valhalla Springs - an eclectic collection of some of the most loveable retirees you'd ever hope to meet! The mystery and danger in this story is perfectly blended with laughter and romance - giving the reader non-stop entertainment. I found the author's sense of humour and fast-paced plot impossible to put-down, and it was with regret that I said good-bye to the residents of this fictional corner of the Ozarks. Grab up EAST OF PECULIAR and take a vacation from the everyday in Valhalla Springs! I did, and I loved every minute!