Who Killed the Queen of Clubs? (Thoroughly Southern Mysteries, No. 7)

Read this recently during a flight. Easy read, interesting characters. Kind of book you can lay down and when you get back to it you haven't lost the plot.

I found this a much more thought challenge than a lot of mysterys I read. I do appreciate the challenge Ms. Sprinkle affords my mind. Another quick read and hard to put down.

Except for the first two books, I have read all of Patricia Sprinkle's Thoroughly Southern Mystery series to date and have loved each one. The stories envelop the reader in the cozy comfort of visiting with old friends, without ever letting them overstay their welcome. Each book reveals something new about returning favorites and introduces enough new friends, family members, and villains to keep things fresh and interesting. The mysteries are clever, intriguing, complex. The setting is rich in the regional flavors, customs, and manners of the small-town South, but never at the expense of other cultures or groups of people. This series never disappoints. I hope Signet will one day offer BUT WHY SHOOT THE MAGISTRATE? and WHEN DID WE LOSE HARRIET? in the same style as the rest of the series so my collection may be complete.

I was nervous. I didn't want to deal with something 'packaged.' I was suspicious of the author's name. It sounded canned, but her picture is on the inside of the back cover. The book is good. The characters are believable, too. They are not overdrawn for Southerners. A man feels he is entitled to own his own business. Disaster ensues. MacLaren Yarborough is invited to see the library director, Alexandra James. MacLaren is a magistrate and a business person. The library employs a champion bridge pLayer, Edie Whelan, who seems to be worried about something. MacLaren learns that Edie's late husband had been an addict. Edie and her step daughter, Genna, have a dispute about snuff boxes, but in the matter of property Genna simply does not know that her father left no money, and Edie is too proud to tell her. The narrator, MacLaren, calls her husband, Southern fashion, Joe Riddley. MacLaren discovers Edie Whelan murdered by machete. This is the third body MacLaren has found since June. Joe Riddley comes in, smelling of boxwood. When MacLaren is riding in an SUV to the new superstore she finds herself violating two principles. MacLaren is exposed to substantial danger as the clues accumulate.

Edith Burkett struggles with grief as her spouse the town pharmacist committed suicide and her father suffered a debilitating stroke that has forced his placement in a nursing home. Making matters even more difficult for the shell shocked Edie is that her husband squandered their money on drugs for personal use as he was an addict. Edie has sold their home and now works to earn money to support herself. Her stepdaughter and son-in-law wants Edie to sell the family's pecan farm since her dad can no loner work it and they fear she is becoming forgetful and want her closer to their home. Edie insists she is fine and asks her concerned friends and family to give her space to recuperate. County magistrate MacLaren Yarbrough visits Edie, but finds her friend murdered in a gruesome manner. The police focus on son of the farm's foreman since Henry's machete is the murder weapon and his overalls has Edie's blood on it. Mac believes Henry is innocent as she knows two people with much stronger motives. She sets off to prove her hypothesis not anticipating the danger she steps into. Make yourself a mint julep, sit on the porch swing, and read a delightful down home southern regional mystery. Mac always ends up in the middle of a murder investigation as she keeps tripping over corpses and yet somehow has many friends anyway who recognize she is a friendly neighbor not the grim reaper. This tale provides readers with a charming look at an old fashion southern town in which everyone knows everyone else. This work is a fine cozy sprinkled with intelligence and wit. Harriet Klausner