The Valentine's Day Murder (The Christine Bennett Mysteries)

Christine Bennett, the former nun, turned housewife and amateur sleuth is up to her neck in murder once again. This time she is trying to help a woman whose husband and two friends took a foolish and risky walk on the frozen waters of Lake Erie during the late hours of February 14th. This rash caper, discussed in the hearing of witnesses during dinner at a local restaurant, turns deadly when their abandoned auto is found the next morning parked with all doors locked near the lake and none of the three turns up. The police investigate and conclude that all three died accidentally from drowning and exposure several miles from shore when they broke through the ice. Each man's wife and family deals with the tragedy in it's own way and tries to get on with life. But then with the spring thaw, only two bodies are recovered and the accident becomes murder when one of the bodies proves to have a bullet hole. Carlotta French begs Chris to help her find out what happened on the ice and try to clear her missing husband, Val, of the suspicion that he was responsible for the murder of his friends. Against all odds, Carlotta also has convinced herself that her husband is alive and in hiding. And she wants him back, vowing that no matter what, she still loves him and knows he could not have done what everyone else suspects to be the only possible solution to this nightmare. It is a nearly complete puzzle --- but little by little, Christine begins to peel back the layers of a life to reveal the Val that few, including his own wife, his business partner, Jake Halpurn, and everyone else thought they knew. Lee Harris does this by keeping most of her cards close to the vest, so the reader can only guess what the final outcome will be. Christine Bennett is so likable that the journey to the final solution is half the fun. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and give it five stars.

I have to admit, I would not have picked this book on my own in probably a million years. It however was the monthly selection for a mystery book group at the local bookstore. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. While the main character is a former nun which sounds kind of hokey, the story itself is not that way. What is very good about this book is that the mystery itself is the central focus and is well developed. While the book does tells us some about the character and her life, it does so always keeping in mind the story being told. There are many popular authors (i.e. Cornwell, Sandford, etc.) that go off on long tangents about the lives and relationships of their main characters. That author gets absorbed in their character and the story suffers for it. You can infer from the fact that the main character is a nun, that of course the book isn't filled with gratuitous sex and graphic violence, and that's right. If you want that in a book, then look elsewhere, but the mystery doesn't suffer from it. The others in the mystery book group had read previous Lee Harris mysteries and came to a consensus that they liked this book and her other stories as well. So if you are thinking about this one, give it a chance.