The Town Cried Murder

The Town Cried Murder is one of Leslie Ford's stand alone novels. Originally published in 1939, it's set in Williamsburg, Virginia, some years after the restoration began. We have a first-person narrator, 60-year-old Miss Lucy Randolph, a life-long resident. Miss Lucy's young cousin, beautiful Faith Yardley, is our damsel in distress. Faith's mother died in the flu pandemic of 1918. Her father takes no notice of her. Faith's aunt, Melusina Yardley, runs the house. Melusina is bitter, unscrupulous, and eaten up with pride. Yardley Hall is her first love. After that, it's young Marshall Yardley, a lawyer, and a genuinely nice person. Miss Lucy's ancestral home is in shape because she sold it to the Restoration Company with lifetime residency guaranteed. Aunt Melusina's plan for getting Yardley Hall fixed up is to pressure lovely Faith into marrying rich Mason Seymour, who is old enough to be the girl's father. Is Faith likely to wind up with that nice Bill Haines, who happens to know the man Aunt Melusina turned down when he was poor -- and then he became a rich automobile man? Alas, Melusina, whom I was rooting to be the murder victim, isn't it. This being a Leslie Ford mystery, there's plenty of reasons for Miss Lucy to worry about Faith and Bill being trapped by circumstantial evidence. Along the way we learn some interesting facts about the suspects. Sadly, readers have to endure the racism of the period. Of the African-American characters, the one we learn the most about is Community, Miss Lucy's maid. Their relationship is similar to that of Grace Latham and Lilac in Ms. Ford's Primrose-Latham mystery series. The one time Miss Lucy uses the 'n-word', it's to give her opinion of Community's husband. The end of the book left me wanting to rub my hands and chortle.