Book Review: Perhaps She'll Die

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Perhaps She'll Die     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
M. K. Preston
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Romantic Suspense
Series: Chantalene # 1
Intrigue, Jul 2001, $23.95, 218 pp.

Tetumka, Oklahoma is a small community that does not accept outsiders at all. Which is how the townsfolk categorize Chantalene’s parents. Clyde was a loud mouth violent drunk and La Vita is a gypsy who lives up to the stereotype and more. When a woman is raped with Clyde in the vicinity, the sheriff charges him with the crime. However, no evidence links Clyde to the crime and that leads to an acquittal.

That night several people drag Clyde out of his home and hang him. Chantalene and her mother witness the sordid mob lynching, but soon La Vita vanishes. Chantalene tells her father’s story, but no one believes her. When she turns twenty-four, Chantalene receives a letter stating that a death row convict confesses to committing the rape. Chantalene returns to her hometown to see that justice is served, but no one wants to remember the incident or its aftermath. Instead, everyone wants her to leave before she sirs up a hornet’s nest.

PERHAPS SHE’LL DIE is a regional mystery that gives the audience a taste of the Sooner state far different from the Rogers and Hammerstein play. The romance between the heroine and her lawyer adds a romantic diversion that helps relieve the tension of a complex plot by turning the heat elsewhere. M.K. Preston uses characters to tell a story with little action, but fans of cerebral mysteries will want to read this intriguing who-done-it.

Harriet Klausner

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