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OUT OF HORMONE'S WAY: A Bel Barrett Mystery
by Jane Isenberg
Avon, September 2002
288 pages
$6.50
ISBN: 0380818876


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

This is the fifth book in the Bel Barrett series (following The M Word, Death in a Hot Flash, Mood Swings to Murder, and Midlife Can Be Murder ). The series as a whole is appealing in that we see Bel deal with problems that are common in middle age as we watch her solve mysteries.

Bel is coping with menopause, worrying about her adult children, and supporting friends through frightening health problems. Through it all she keeps her sense of humor as well as her compassion. Some of the coping skills she demonstrates are quite sensible.

For instance, Bel and her two closest friends have created a ritual for going in for their mammograms once a year. This ensures that all of them go in (no putting it off and 'forgetting' it for a year).

After the test they go to lunch together. In past years the lunch has been celebratory. However, the results from this year's tests are not all good news. Coping with fear of cancer is one of the themes of this book.

Bel's love of her job is another theme. She is an English professor at a Community College. Her love of teaching and commitment to her students show in all her interactions. This is a woman who knows that her job changes lives and who is determined to do everything she can to help her students onto the right track.

When Bel's friend Wendy is called out of town for a family emergency, Wendy asks Bel to take over faculty supervision of the Urban Kayaking Club. This group meets in Laurel Hill Park to kayak in a somewhat polluted section of the New Jersey Meadowlands.

Sleeping in on Saturday mornings has been one of the joys of Bel's life in the past, but the club will be disbanded if she does not step in. Bel thinks that the pollution will be the worst thing that she will have to worry about. She's wrong.

One of the students in the club is found dead, and another is the prime suspect. Bel's concern for her students draws her in and she begins her own investigation. An investigation that will uncover both pollution and corruption before she is done.

Reviewed by Jill Long, December 2002

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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