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BEWARE FALSE PROFITS
by Emilie Richards
Berkley, November 2007
304 pages
$6.99
ISBN: 0425218686


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

On a rare vacation in New York City Emerald Springs's Aggie Sloan-Wilcox and her minister husband Ed are asked to look for Joe Wagner, a member of their parish, who has gone missing.

Joe is a popular, hardworking parishioner and he's also the president of Emerald Springs's food bank. They find out that Joe had been in the city – in fact, he had been entertaining as a cross-dressing singer in a popular nightclub. But unfortunately, before they can contact him, Joe has already left, never to return. Angie and her husband go home without Joe.

Aggie and Ed must try not to let what they found become public knowledge, as it might ruin Joe's standing in the town. It would also hurt his wife and diabetic young son if what Joe did ever got out, especially as he had been saying that his trips out of town were on the Food Bank's behalf.

Angie can't help but become more involved. Joe's wife Mara seems a bit out of it and Angie can't just leave her and her son to face this time alone without any help.

But then again Angie has her own work cut out for her. As the minister's wife she has to be the image of propriety, so she comes out for the local fundraiser to benefit the food bank. There she learns in detail that the mayor's wife, Hazel Kefauver, who is a rich woman, wants the poor to sweat for any food that the bank gives them.

Hazel also demands that the bank only give out healthy food and nothing tasty, even though she is a secret chocoholic and smoker. Hazel is going to try to take over the food bank and set it up to her own satisfaction. Angie understands (and personally and quietly agrees) when she hears that Joe hated the woman.

At the food bank benefit, just as the chocolate fountain starts to act up, Hazel Kefauver keels over – dead. They soon discover she was poisoned. But who did it? Because Joe isn't around and people know what a pain she was to him, Joe is suddenly the prime suspect in her murder.

Along with the help of the women of the church, Angie asks questions as she tries to find out where Joe is and who killed Hazel. She's also looking for the expensive crystal punch bowl that she managed to misplace!

Before I read this book I was a bit afraid that it would be too religious in content for me – after all it is in a series called Ministry is Murder Mysteries. But nothing could have been farther from the fact. Angie is a minister's wife, that's true, but she was brought up as a free soul and has a lot of respect for everyone's views.

I enjoyed this book a lot. Angie makes a wonderful amateur sleuth because she takes the clues and tries to solve all the mysteries. She also has a great sense of humor about herself and her family and is a caring person. She manages to juggle her job as a wife and mother and daughter to her free-spirited quilt making artist mother with her job as a helper to the community and here, as an amateur sleuth.

This is the third in the series and I liked it so much that I intend to go out of my way to get the earlier books in the series. Angie is a lovely person and I quite enjoyed the time I spent with her!

Reviewed by A. L. Katz, October 2007

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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