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BROKEN DISHES
by Earlene Fowler
Berkley, May 2005
284 pages
$6.99
ISBN: 042520197X


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

The recently-deceased friend of Benni Harper's father left a struggling new guest ranch to his young daughter Shawna, and her new husband Johnny Abbot. Because the families were so close, Benni takes on the job of helping the struggling couple make the Broken DIS, formerly a working ranch, into a successful guest retreat.

Benni seems to know just about everyone in town and calls upon anyone who can be of help to pitch in to make the guests happy. Because of Benni's knowledge and love for quilting, it's her idea to give the opening weeks a craft theme, luckily getting a famous quilter to join in the busy itinerary of the ranch.

Benni and her helpers are doing their best to make the retreat a success, but before the first week is over one of the ranch's dogs uncover human bones from a shallow grave near a new scenic path in a formerly inaccessible section of the ranch.

The police are called in, unfortunately in the person of Detective Ford 'Hud' Hudson, a cop whose flirtatious way bothers Benni a lot. The bones are soon discovered to be from a man murdered decades ago, but the question arises, who could have committed the murder all those years ago and why have the bones come to light just that week?

As things start to go wrong on the ranch, there's an escaped prize bull and a fire, Benni needs to figure out what is happening. Was either Shawna's father or his closest pal, Benni's emotionally closed-off father, the one responsible for the death? Or is the body connected to one of the present day guests of the ranch?

When Benni's husband, Gabe Ortiz, the chief of Police in Cen Celina comes to the ranch as yet another helper, Benni has more on her mind than just the investigation. Gabe and Hud are getting on each other's nerves vying for Benni's attention and spurring her on to hurry up and solve the mystery.

This is the 11th in the Benni Harper books but as a newcomer to the series, I found that it stands on its own nicely. The writing is skillful and always engaging. There is a large cast of characters and all of them, including the secondary and side characters, are realistic and well-crafted, true to life personalities. And unlike many popular murder mysteries of the moment, the morality level of the population in this series is high and the murder isn't tied to any psychotic dark side of human neurosis. As such, this story falls well into the tradition of a first-class cozy murder mystery.

BROKEN DISHES is a wonderful read and well worth any effort it might take to get your hands on it. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Reviewed by Sharon Katz, May 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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