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Catherine Penny, a 60-something librarian, has just moved from New York to Far Wychwood, England, and a lovely 17th century cottage. Her husband left her for another woman, so she left her life on West 83 Street in Manhattan and, in an attempt to get closer to her daughter, who is a psychotherapist living in Oxford, decided to move to England. The first night in her cottage, she is looking out the window when she sees flames coming from the window of the only cottage in view. She rushes into the house next door just in time to put out a fire in the kitchen curtains. The neighbor, George Crocker, is a nasty smelly old man, but she cooks him a supper, takes the rest of the matches with her, and goes back to her new home. No one seems to want to help George. He was accused of stealing something from the manor house ten years before, and no one, not even his son, an optometrist in London want anything to do with him. Meanwhile, down at the church, the new vicar is overseeing the excavation of a centuries-old cross. He wants to move it to the back of the churchyard so he can build a youth center attached to the church. The villagers have petitioned the bishop to stop what they consider the desecration of their churchyard, but the bishop will do nothing. However, the bulldozer operator finds a skeleton buried just under the cross, and that stops all excavation activity until the police discover the identity of the deceased. This is the first in a projected series. It is very much in the traditional mystery camp. Grandma moves to be near semi-estranged daughter and baby-sits grandson and by the way, solves an old crime. The characters are too black and white for me, and the story rather banal, but lovers of this very soft kind of mystery should try it. You may like it.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, January 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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