Susan Wittig Albert, A Dilly of a Death Review

Overall Rating

A Dilly of a Death
Susan Wittig Albert
Berkley, Jan 2003, $23.95, 336 pp.
ISBN 0425193993

China Bayles left a thriving law practice in Houston to become a shop owner in Pecan Springs, a quiet little town except for the occasional murder that somehow China is always investigating. Homicide is the last thing on China's mind as she gets ready for Picklefest, an annual event celebrating Morgan's Premier Pickles, the largest pickle making place west of the Mississippi.

Phoebe Morgan controls Picklefest with an iron fist in a velvet glove. When the committee needs to meet with Phoebe, neither she, nor her boy toy Todd Kellerman can be found. A hard rain flushes Phoebe's body out of a containment area right outside the pickle factory. It isn't long before, the sheriff discovers that she was killed but she had so many enemies who wanted to kill her, he doesn't know where to start investigating first. Lucky for him he has China and Ruby who dig up enough information that China begins to realize who the killer might be.

A DILLY OF A DEATH is a fantastic amateur sleuth novel as China deals with two businesses, Ruby's illegitimate daughter's problems, her & husband's her career all the while she is trying to find out who killed Phoebe and Todd. Readers care about China because the most important people in her life is her husband and her stepson and she never puts them on the back burner even when she is pulled in several directions at once. Susan Wittig Albert once again provides a who-done-it that is almost impossible to solve by a mere mortal.

Harriet Klausner