Book Review: Calling the Dead

Reviewed By: Pat Reid - RAM

Calling the Dead     Amazon US TPB Amazon Canada TPB
Marilyn Meredith
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Woman Main Character   Native American
Series: Tempe Crabtree Mystery
Mundania Press, 2006, 154 pps.

Calling The Dead is the first of the Tempe Crabtree books that I have read but it certainly won’t be the last one I read. I have already made a list of Tempe Crabtree to pick up when I can.

Tempe is married to a minister and is a deputy assigned to the Bear Creek area, a small town in the southern end of the Sierra mountain range. She also has a teen-aged son who is with the volunteer fire department. Tempe doesn’t follow instructions easily and when her superiors tell her to drop a matter and let the detectives handle it Tempe is not too inclined to follow those directions.

When Tempe is called to investigate when two teen-agers call in a report that they have spotted a body beneath a local bridge. Tempe recognizes the girl as Doreen Felton a girl from town that she had arrested once on a DUI. The detectives in charge suspect Doreen’s boyfriend but Tempe has her doubts.

One of Tempe’s husband’s parishioners passes away. Hutch, Tempe’s husband, is suspicious of the man’s death and particularly suspicious because of the way the widow is acting. And even more suspicious when she immediately starts showing up around town on the arm of the local veterinarian who happens to have quite a bit of money and is an eligible bachelor. He keeps bringing his suspicions to Tempe’s attention until she finally begins an investigation of her own into the life of the widow and who she was married to and where she lived before coming to Bear Creek.

Against her husband’s wishes and with the help of her friend Two John Tempe finally resorts to an attempt at Calling the Dead to help her solve one of the mysteries.

Pat Reid - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Pat Reid - RAM