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BEADS OF DOUBT
by Barbara Burnett Smith and Karen MacInerney
Berkley, June 2007
320 pages
$6.99
ISBN: 042521608X


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Kitzi Camden is a 50-something, high-standing member of Texas society who was herself a former senator as well as the granddaughter of the former Governor of Texas. Her Governor grandfather left the family home to the whole family, but when it started to fall apart a few years ago, no one wanted to live in it and take on all the problems of refurbishing it and getting it up to standard.

But because Kitzi saw that leaving it would break her mother's heart, she took the job on and sank most of her money and time into the place making The Manse, as they all call it, into a showplace and home of beauty. Kitzi regularly permits worthwhile charities use of the place as part of their fundraising.

These days she is allowing the local chapter of the Ovarian Cancer Organization (OCO) to use it as a Bead Tea charity event location. Too many of Kitzi's friends and relatives have recently become the victims of ovarian cancer. Her cousin Houston's wife Rebecca is fighting it as well as one of Kitzi's friends, and that friend is losing the battle. Kitzi feels helpless against ovarian cancer, so she decided that she can, at least, help the local charity to help get funding, and what better way than to also use her love for beading to help fight ovarian cancer.

Kitzi is a dedicated beader – a person who works in beads to make jewelry and all sorts of decorative items. She caught the fever of beading the last year and since then she and her best friend Beth have not let a day go by when they are not making something beautiful out of beads, or trying their best not to take out their pocketbooks to purchase more beads or a beautiful object made of them.

As she and her mother help the charity organizers put everything together, Kitzi receives a phone call from her cousin Houston's lawyer, saying that Houston is going to try to take the Manse from her as a member of the family and evict her and her mother from living there.

Kitzi is furious! Houston didn't do a thing to help save the place when it was falling apart, and now he is trying to take it from her guardianship. Well, Kitzi hasn't trusted Houston since he talked her out of her birthday money when she was seven, and now she likes him even less. Kitzi decides she will defend the house with everything she has.

At the same time, Houston's business partner Andrew is trying too hard to get his hands on Kitzi's money with talk of great investments and Kitzi is disgusted with them both. And when Andrew tells her he is no longer going to be partners with her cousin, Kitzi couldn't care less. She has a charity event to see to.

But later that night Andrew's body is found in a nearby dumpster, his head bashed in by one of the Manse's well-known huge candlesticks. Kitzi is determined that the terrible act will not mar the charity's benefit night. Happily, Nate, a lovely man Kitzi has a yearning for, shows up to offer her a strong arm to lean upon – something for which she is truly grateful. Nate, along with Beth, offers to help Kitzi find out all about the Manse takeover as well as try to find out who killed Andrew. All in all it's a full weekend

Rarely does a cozy contain so many likeable factors as is found in BEADS OF DOUBT. The main character, Kitzi, is well off, well-educated and a well-established member of society, but she is also immensely pleasant and someone the readers can admire and laugh with. She's a mature woman who can still get an electrical zap when the man of her dreams stands near her.

Though never lacking for anything, Kitzi is a character who still remembers that not everyone has her good luck in life. She doesn't see herself as special or above others. Hey, you can't help but like a woman who remembers that a woman of a certain age must cover her upper arms in case she goes nuts and waves to friends across the room in public. Kitzi also has the knowledge that her good luck is fleeting and that she could easily be in the position of the less lucky, as is Rebecca and her friend who just got the bad news that her ovarian cancer is inoperable.

Writer Barbara Burnett Smith did the difficult job of writing about ovarian cancer in a respectful and real way. Her sister died of the disease months before the book came out and she was able to capture what family and friends of cancer victims feel.

Unfortunately there will be no more of this series with Kitzi Camden because Barbara Burnett Smith died in a car accident before BEADS OF DOUBT was completed. Writer and family friend Karen MacInerney was asked to finish the book and she did a good job of it.

There's little violence in this book but a lot of heartfelt thought in it. I wasn't thrilled with the way the solution to the mystery came to light, in that I don't think that Kitzi would do anything foolish, but that's just an unimportant detail. BEADS OF DOUBT is a wonderful cozy! It also includes a few pages of directions to do some beading of your own.

I just wish there were more installments of this series around to be read and an opportunity for more to be written. BEADS OF DOUBT touched me and I feel as I have lost a friend because there will no longer be books starring Kitzi Camden.

Reviewed by A. L. Katz, July 2007

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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