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In Washington State, young widow Sophie Mae Reynolds runs a mail order business, selling homemade fragrances, bath salts and soap. She shares a house with her best friend and her daughter and Sophie is now dating, rather seriously, the small town's only detective. After a night of helping out at the phone-in help line, supported by the wealthy Heaven family's foundation, Sophie isn't too happy. The help line's boss, Phillip, is a member of the Heaven family who doesn't seem to care enough to follow through on any of his promises having to do with the help line. And while answering the phones that night, Sophie Mae might have also caught the interest of a stalker. The people of the small town of Cadyville are old-fashioned and down-to-earth and they still can their own foods and make preserves. So that everyone can share in the bounty, they all get together a few times a year and exchange canned goods. This year the joy of canning is dimmed when Phillip Heaven is poisoned by a bad bottle of beets the day before everyone was going to share their canned goods. Since Sophie Mae was the last person to speak to Philip before he succumbed to the botulism, the woman whose canned beets are thought to have been tainted asks Sophie Mae to look into the death. After she explains that she never cuts her beets in that shape and didn't use the canning lid on the bad beets, Sophie knows that some other beets must have killed Philip. Sophie Mae agrees to look into the death, not just because Phillip didn't deserve to die in such a horrible way, but because her boyfriend, Detective Barr, also had one of the killer beets and he nearly succumbed to its poison too. And of course. Sophie Mae fancies herself as a great amateur sleuth after she solved the case of her handy man's death a few months earlier. So, even though the police say otherwise, Sophie Mae is on the trail of a killer by botulism. This is the second in this new Home Crafting Mystery and it's the first I've read. Since it's set in Washington state amongst people who still make their own preserves and still leave their homes unlocked because they trust their neighbors, the readers can almost be guaranteed a lovely and cosy time as they read the mystery. Sophie Mae is a thirty-something woman who is doing her best to get her life back together after the early death of her husband. She is old enough to not be too foolish, but still young enough to think that good intent and noble feelings are enough to protect her when on the trail of a killer. Sophie Mae also has a fine backup in her group of friends and her boyfriend. All these people have good hearts but still appear as realistic, sensitive people who have their own problems to get through. Nicely paced without any time wasted, HEAVEN PRESERVE US does a fine job of leading the readers through the investigation with no false starts or cheap side trips. I liked that the story moved along at a good pace and that the writing was solid and entertaining. HEAVEN PRESERVE US has a few recipes for watermelon rinds and making soap, but the crafts section never interferes with the murder investigation. This is a solid book that stands well on its own, but I do want to find and read the first in the series and all the other volumes that are yet to come.
Reviewed by A.L. Katz, August 2008
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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