Genre: Mystery
Five Stars
It's time for Blue Plum's annual historical festival, and everyone-including Kath and her spunky fiber and needlework group, TGIF-is getting in on the action. Expert spinners are being gathered, and a businessman has approached Kath about using the second-floor windows of her store for part of a reenactment. But the reencactment ends in real-life bloodshed when local baker Reva Louise Snapp is shot-with a bullet from a modern-day gun.
Kath has her theories about who wanted to end Reva Louise's life. But there's also talk of a sniper stalking Blue Plum, and Kath's shop is suspected of being the murderer's hideout. Now Kath, her TGIF pals, and the gloomy ghost, Geneva, must unravel the mystery quickly, or someone else might be left hanging by a thread...
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When the annual Blue Plum Festival heads into town, Kath and her friends are making plans to not only take part, but hope that the festival will bring business from tourists heading toward her shop. She is soon approached by J. Scott Prescott, a businessman who not only wants to use her second story windows as part of the "pig skit," but also to purchase her building. She says no to both, partly because she likes her shop and wouldn't sell under any circumstances; partly because Geneva, the gloomy ghost, lives upstairs and she doesn't want people traipsing through there.
Reva Louise Snapp is a half-sister of Mel, the local diner's owner. But unlike Mel, nobody likes Reva Louise. From the beginning, you realize the kind of person Reva Louise is, and it's not a nice one. So when the pig skit takes place, and people are shooting (blanks) all through the town, no one notices right away that one of the bullets was real. And has killed Reva Louise.
Sheriff Cole Dunbar, Kath's sometime nemesis, has decided the fatal shot has come from Kath's building, and closed it off as a crime scene. Now Kath and her friends decide that they need to find the killer as soon as possible, not only to get the shop reopened, but because they realize there is more to it than meets the eye.
I loved this book. I have always said that I enjoyed books which can draw me in right away, and this is one of them. I didn't like Reva Louise any more than Kath or her friends (probably because we've all known someone similar to her in one way or another). And I absolutely love Geneva.
This actually is more than the mystery surrounding Reva Louise's death: it also draws us into the mystery of Geneva. We are given little snippets of her memory here and there; you never know what might be revealed, really without Geneva noticing that she's even telling Kath anything. (Unfortunately, I have to wait until the next book to find out more). That, I found, was the most interesting parts of the book.
But the mystery surrounding Reva Louise's death is just as good. There are times when you're sure who the killer is; but you might find yourself wrong all along. I must confess I was somewhat surprised myself, and I suggest that you don't peek at the end to see 'whodunit.' It's a much more fun book if you don't know until Kath does. Highly recommended.
http://www.amazon.com/Spinning-Her-Grave-Haunted-Mystery/dp/0451240642/
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