Book Review: Biggie and the Meddlesome Mailman

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Biggie and the Meddlesome Mailman     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Nancy Bell
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Amateur Sleuth
Series: Biggie # 4
St. Martin’s Minotaur, Nov 1999, $22.95, 214 pp.

Job’s Crossing, Texas is a small town where everyone knows one another and secrets are hard to keep. However, most residents prefer that their neighbors mind their own business. Letter carrier Luther Abernathy prefers gossip. He goes out of his way to attain information on people and disseminates his findings to anyone he meets.

However, Luther must have found one secret that its owner wanted kept buried because he is found dead by Biggie Weatherford and her grandson J.R. in what appears to be a car accident. However, Biggie and J.R. know that Luther was murdered because the killing blow to his head came from behind not in front as it would have in a vehicle crash. Biggie has a lot on her plate and has no time to investigate Luther’s death. Still, whichever item she works on, somehow she and J.R. keep ending up in the middle of a murder investigation.

BIGGIE AND THE MEDDLESOME MAILMAN is a wonderful entry in a warm series. The who-done-it is obvious, but retains a cozy charm to it thanks in part due to the strong showing of the secondary players coming off the bench to propel the tale forward. Biggie and the narrating J.R. are a fabulous amateur sleuth duo whose milieu seems to always be a homicide investigation no matter how hard they try otherwise. Nancy Bell provides her audience with a comical look at small town Texas that retains the freshness of the previous three entries.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner