Susan Wittig Albert The Tale of the Holly How

The Tale of the Holly How

Susan Wittig Albert

Berkley, June 2005, $23.95, 320 pp.

ISBN 0425202747

After the death of her fianc e, children's author and illustrator Beatrix Potter buys Hill Top Farm in the Lake District village of Near Sawrey. After a period of adjustment, Miss Potter and the villagers accommodate one another as she has the farmhouse renovated so she can live there when she isn't needed by her parents in London, particularly her mother who, as always, demands Beatrix help her with her "nothing" crisis.

Miss Potter buys sheep from local shepherd Ben Hornby, but when she arrives to collect them, she finds him dead with evidence proving he was murdered. Miss Potter also befriends sad Caroline, whose grandmother, Lady Longford doesn't want to know her since she disowned her granddaughter's father (her son) for not marrying the women she had picked for him. Caroline overhears the governess Ms. Marline plotting to pull a stunt with a person applying for the head school teacher position against her grandmother. Remembering Miss Potter's kindness on a previous excursion, she goes to her for help and she along with some of the locals set a trap to catch two very clever villains.

THE TALE OF THE HOLLY HOW is a charming adorable amateur sleuth tale set in a village where animals talk to help one another in the tradition of Sneaky Pete Brown. There is a sub-plot involving villagers sponsoring badger baiting (forcing badgers to fight with money bet on the outcome) until all the animals work together to break up this vile practice. Susan Witting Albert enables readers to see the world through the magical eyes of Miss Beatrix Potter.

Harriet Klausner