Book Review: Bead On Trouble

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Bead On Trouble     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Barbara Burnett Smith
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Woman Main Character   Amateur Sleuth
Series: Kitzi Camden # 1
Berkley, Jan 2005, $5.99, 304 pp.

Kitzi Camden and Beth Fairfield have been best friends ever since they met when they were eight years old at Camp Green Clover in Texas. Now in their fifties, they attend the twice yearly Craft Retreats that the camp holds. The two women and Beth’s daughter Shannon arrive at the camp.

The teen asks Kitzi to drive her to a hardware store on the first night of camp because Shannon insists she saw her father’s car parked there once when he was supposed to be someplace else and he has been going out at night using flimsy excuses. When they arrive at the parking lot they see Shannon’s father making out with a camp crafter May Feather. They return to the camp but agree not to say anything to Beth that night; the next morning they learn that May was murdered. Shannon and Mitzi lie to the police about their whereabouts the night before but one of the offices don’t believe them. Kitzi decides to do a little sleuthing on her own to see if she can find out who the killer is.

This first installment in Barbara Burnett Smith’s new amateur sleuth mystery is a cleverly constructed who done it with enough suspects that the reader won’t be able to figure out who the killer is until the author chooses to reveal the perpetrator’s identity. Even when the murderer is revealed, readers will be shocked because that person is the last one anyone would guess is capable of killing. The heroine proves that being a half century old means one remains energetic and quick willed as those twenty-five years younger. BEAD ON TROUBLE is an entertaining and lively mystery.

Harriet Klausner

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