Who Killed the Queen of Clubs?
Patricia Sprinkle
Signet, Mar 2005, $5.99, 272 pp.
ISBN: 0451214501

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 want 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 have 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 julip, 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