The Body in the Kelp: A Faith Fairchild Mystery

I don't know why. I'm not Christian and the series revolves around a minister's wife. Page just creates characters that feel like they are alive, and you want to find out what the're up to. Yes, if I knew of her I'd stay far away because everyone winds up dead at places she goes to, but I love to read about them.

I have read several of Katherine Hall Page's "The Body in the xxxx" books and have found them to be enjoyable lightweight cozy mysteries. As one reviewer did mention, I also was finding typos within the book. Unfortunately, this is something I am finding in every new book published since the beginning of computers and Spell check. It seems that no human eye actually edits books anymore. Publishers need to hire real people to read and fix these errors. I enjoy cozy mysteries and I don't expect them to be be major works of literature and with that in mind, you will find this a delightful book and learn a bit about Maine. As a quilter though, I had problems with their disection of the the quilt looking for clues. I have many quilt block resources and some of the most common blocks such as Ocean Waves were blocks that Pix and Faith seemed to have the most trouble figuring out and it should have been one of the first. What they decided was a Rail Fence block looks nothing like the Rail Fence block quilt I made last year--perhaps it is the illustration. The quilt actually had some original block ideas and I appreciate the fact that there was an illustration of the quilt to refer to. Other quilters may also have some problems with this bit of the book dealing with the book/quilt. I still give this book 5 stars as it did what this type of book is supposed to. It gave me a relaxing read and entertained me for an evening for a low price as I picked it up at a library used book sale. If I wanted great literature to read, I would have picked War and Peace or some such thing.

This second Faith Fairchild book is even better than the first one. Faith and her family are vacationing on an island off the coast of Maine, along with her friend Pix and her family. An elderly woman is found dead and her newly-completed quilt seems to have clues to the woman's stash of gold coins. Faith and Pix have a real challenge in unraveling the clues, while even more people begin to die. The setting and character interactions in this book are delightful and the mystery has just enough twists and turns to be interesting.

I loved this second Faith Fairchild mystery. Her books are short and light and just the ticket for a lazy Sunday afternoon. I find her prose to be witty and I love the relationship between Faith and her best friend, Pix. Can't wait to read more of this series. Just what cozy mysteries should be.

This was my first Faith Fairchild mystery. I really enjoyed it. Faith seems like the kind of woman who could live next door, someone you'd want for a friend. Her habit of falling into mysteries (alluded to in this book as happening in previous books) makes for fun, fast reading. My only criticism? Her child is TOO good, never around, never fussing. But then if he was a normal kid, Faith would be like the rest of us, never getting ANYTHING done. If you enjoy mysteries, you'll love Faith. I'll be reading the rest of the series for sure!