Familiar Friend

And besides, didn't Spencer-Fleming do the female Episcopal priest-older married police chief love thing already? Sumners makes the priest wealthy and the setting is Princeton, NJ, instead of upstate NY, but it still seems not very original. I read this book in a day -- it's definitely a page turner. There are two plots going on, one of which is planted in the first chapter before going on to the finding of a body in the second chapter. Most of the book focuses on the body story-line. Personally, I think the other plot line should have been dropped, as it was never sufficiently developed anyway. The main characters are the Episcopal priest (who is wealthy and her boyfriend is an English noble) and the police chief, who is unhappily married. The priest is credibly involved in the case because the body was left on the grounds of the church and a parishioner found it. The list of suspects are primarily in a department of the university (clearly Princeton, although given another name), and the husband of the priest's-good-friend-who-finds-the-body is a student in that department. It's an intriguing situation for a cozy mystery -- limited number of suspects to pick from. However -- the killer was quickly on my short list of suspects and never left it, so I was not surprised at the outcome. Aside from the problems with a borrowed situation and extraneous plot, I thought that the priest having an English marquis in love with her (and she with him) and her having all that money and the police chief pining for her was all just a bit too much unrealistic Harlequin romance for my taste. All we needed was a scene with them cuddled up by a fire together, while it snowed outside and the cookies baked in the oven. I did appreciate that Sumners got the details right about the church and the university -- the author clearly knows and understands her setting.

Hello all, I have read all three of Ms Sumners books and enjoyed them all. I want to know if anyone knows when her 4th book will be published?? Thanks,DG

"Familiar Friend" takes us back to Harton, USA, after a hop across the pond to England in the previous novel. I'm glad to be back in the town Cristina Sumners based on Princeton, N.J. Wealthy and highly educated Episcopalian priest Kathryn Koerney and Police Chief Tom Holder, a working-class flatfoot rich in spirit and smart as a whip when it comes to criminal investigations, are more in their element in this academic hothouse than in an aristocratic ancestral home, to my mind. The first in this series, "Crooked Heart," was a splendid web of plotting and characterization. This third installment follows a slightly different structure: unlike books one and two, it contains no unnamed actors but still very effectively weaves a plot not easily untangled...although I did spot one perpetrator and the means of the crime without a lot of strain. As is the case in many a mystery novel, Sumners crowds a bunch of what end up being peripheral stand-ups into the book to inflate the suspect list, but in "Familiar Friend" I found it a trifle annoying that several of the couples introduced early on just evaporated later. They had potential. The evolving relationship of Kathryn and Tom moves forward pleasingly in this book, and Tom's rival for Kathryn's heart does enter the picture in the later pages of "Familiar Friend" which was a relief to me since I kept wondering if he'd been forgotten. Sumners writes in her Acknowledgements that she actually began this novel in the 1970s and then crafted it into this third published work. Presumably, this explains why on page 114, there is a reference to a character's office being in the World Trade Center. I guess either editing didn't catch that, or are we supposed to assume this story took place before 2001? It's a mystery. I hope a fourth Kathryn/Tom novel will be forthcoming!

After a marriage counseling session, Tracy is walking home when she comes upon a dead body in the drive way of St. Margaret's Church. She runs across the street to the police station; the cops find the murdered body of the head of the Spanish Department of Harton University Mason Blaine. Harton, New Jersey Chief of Police Tom Holder takes charge of the case and discovers he is drowning in suspects became the dead professor was a vindictive man who made a lot of enemies. While he is working that case, the suspects are at an academic party with Tom's friend Reverend Kathryn Koerney attending as a spy for him. While Kathryn talks with Tracy, the latter's husband grabs her drink from her hand, drinks it, and immediately dies. Poison was proven to be the murder weapon. Between the two cases, Tom has not seen his wife and it turns up she has been missing for four days. The D.A. suspends Tom and takes over his two murder investigations hoping to get the glory. Kathryn, with the help of Tom's friends, devises a way for the suspended cop to get his job back so he can solve the homicides. Readers will thoroughly enjoy the combination police procedural amateur sleuth mystery that opens with the "destruction of Tom Holder" and never slows down. The characters are richly defined and even the suspects for the most part are likeable. Readers will never guess who the killer is and will be even more stunned when they learn why his wife disappeared. Christina Sumners writes a first rate crime caper. Harriet Klausner

A charming mixture of clerical sleuth and academic university setting, Koerney's latest is a delicious summer treat! You can feel the ivy in the richness of FAMILIAR FRIEND's Ivy League setting as Koerney's flowing prose whisks you along, darting in and out amongst characters, and character types, you may well remember from the alma mater....If you have a taste for traditional mysteries a la Sayers, Christie or, in a more modern setting, Spencer-Fleming or McInerny, mix yourself a cool gin and tonic and pick up this terrific whodunit!