Isis Crawford, A Catered Wedding

A Catered Wedding

Isis Crawford

Kensington, Dec2004, $22.00, 288 pp.

ISBN: 0758206852

Lisa Sharpe is marrying a very rich man, who happens to be more than two decades her senior. She is not marrying for love; she is marrying for money as the nine karats on her hand, the twenty-five K wedding dress, and a billion other items make up for the lack of passion. When she gets a call to meet someone at the wedding tent, an irritated Lisa enters the reception tent, but is killed instantly by a crossbow arrow.

Catering the nuptials, Bernadette and Libby Simmons, owners of A Taste of Heaven, find the body. The father of the Simmons sisters Sean is the former police chief, but is now confined to a wheelchair due to a debilitating illness; he takes an interest in the homicide, especially when he and his two daughters are hired to uncover the identity of the perpetrator. For the first time in three years, he has left his home to scope out the crime scene while his daughters heed (not) his advice and investigate on their own only to find much of the wedding party, including the groom, had motives and opportunity.

A CATERED WEDDING is an upbeat, funny and delightful amateur sleuth mystery (though one is a former professional - he got paid for investigations) due to the three main characters. Sean tries unsuccessfully to boss his daughters, but Bernie spouts encyclopedic paragraphs at the drop of a hat and Libby is the poster girl for obsessive-compulsive. All the suspects have strong motives for wanting the victim dead so in spite of clues readers will remain clueless until the author reveals the killer's identity. The three likable protagonists win readers' hearts as they "crash" the wedding party.

Harriet Klausner