Book Review: Murder Carries a Torch

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Murder Carries a Torch     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Anne Carroll George
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Senior Sleuths   Amateur Sleuth   Humorous
Series: Southern Sisters # 7
Morrow, Jul 2000, $23.00, 260 pp.

Birmingham, Alabama’s Southern Sisters are tired after just returning home from spending two weeks in Warsaw, Poland celebrating the wedding of Patricia Anne’s daughter. However, their idyllic breather ends even before it begins when cousin Luke “Puke” Nelson asks for their help. Apparently, Virginia, Luke’s wife of forty years, left him for a house painter, Holden “Monk” Crawford. Reluctantly Patricia Anne agrees to accompany her more enthusiast sibling Mary Alice in finding the runaway.

Mouse and Sister as Patricia Anne and Mary Alice are more commonly known trace Virginia and Monk to a remote church on Mount Chandler. However, instead of finding the runaways, the Southern Sisters find two murdered corpses, neither being Monk or Virginia. As they continue their inquiries, Sister and the local Sheriff seem stuck on one another. Ultimately, they locate a dead Monk, but they still have not found the missing Virginia.

Fans of the series will fully enjoy the seventh cozy in the Southern Sisters series. MURDER CARRIES A TORCH centers more on Mouse’s humorous asides with the reader about the excessive behavior of Sister than on detective work. Still, that should not surprise fans of the series, as that is the essence of all the novels.

Harriet Klausner

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