"Funny amateur sleuth mystery"

It's the annual Yorktown Day celebration. Her formidable future mother-in-law drafts Meg Langslow into making sure that the crafts people, reenactors and everyone else connected to the event are staying in period. No articles that weren't available when the British surrendered to George Washington are allowed. It is Meg's sad and much lamented job to enforce that rule or risk stirring the wrath of a woman she wants to please.

Trying to be everything for everybody has given Meg a headache and a need for some time alone. At the welcoming night party, she sneaks out to go to her booth, which she finds vandalized. By the time she gets over that setback, she gets an even bigger one. A man with a knife in his back is found dead behind her booth. Meg made the knife and like many other people argued in public with the victim. To insure that the sheriff doesn't arrest the wrong person, Meg decide to do a little sleuthing on her own.

Meg Langslow has to be one of the most quirky and endearing amateur sleuths to grace the pages of a mystery novel in a long time. Her relatives and friends, who make up most of the secondary characters, are lovable eccentrics that juice up the story line. Donna Andrews has written an excellent who-done-it that should win her an award.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted September 13, 2001