Jo Dereske Bookmarked to Die

Bookmarked to Die

Jo Dereske

Avon, June 2006, $6.99, 368 pp.

ISBN 006079082

When Miss Helma Zukas awakens on the morning of her forty second birthday she feels a heaviness of spirit and she is troubled because has no reason to feel that way. She is so gloomy that she forgets that the local author project is getting underway that night. She rallies to the occasion and she has a full house of writers who want to be represented in the collection.

All goes smoothly but when people are leaving, attendee Molly is killed in a hit and run. A few days later, Tanya who also was at the local author gathering was murdered when somebody pushed her down a flight of steps. Chief of Police Wayne Gallant, who has been cold to Helma since her forty-second birthday warns her against interfering on his homicide infestation. She promptly finds reasons to figure out who the killer is and almost winds up as murder victim number three. When she is not searching for a killer she is seeking her cat, who got lost when Helma's friend took him for a week.

It has been a long time since the last Miss Zukas mystery but it was well worth the wait because BOOKMARKED TO DIE is one of the most enjoyable books in the series. The heroine is an honest and loyal person whose stubborn streak gets more provincial the older she gets. She is an independent feisty woman who marches to her own drummer and has many friends because they know they can count on her. This character driven mystery will grab and hold the reader's attention from the first page to last.

Harriet Klausner