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Elizabeth Stuart is starting over once again. this time in a small Minnesota town. She has left Atlanta and her wealthy husband and brought her teen-age son to this little close-knit community. Naturally they are not immediately accepted. In fact the stories that circulate accuse Elizabeth of being sexually loose. Then, almost immediately, Elizabeth stumbles across the corpse of a prominent citizen sitting in his car. This brings Sheriff Dane Jantzen into the picture. Murder is rare in this community and he wants to solve it quickly. There is another complication: an Amish community living side by side with the "English." One of the Amish men offers to fix up Elizabeth's house which is in pretty bad condition. Gradually the reader can see complications as they work side by side. Meanwhile, Elizabeth's son has taken up with the wildest boys in town and commits some petty crimes and vandalism which forces the sheriff to arrest him. The story has many layers and admittedly does not move very fast. The listener must pluck aside each thread of the plot to see how they are all intertwine. But this book will reward the reader who has the patience to do so. The main character, Elizabeth, is a fascinating woman. She wants to be accepted in this town. She wants her son to make better friends and grow up. But the town does not want to accept her. She has a fiery temper which sometimes breaks out at inconvenient times. She is a feisty woman whom I find very admirable. She is willing to go it alone and do about anything, including running a small town weekly newspaper, so that her son has the chance to grow up. She bends, as when somewhere trashes the newspaper office, but she does not break. The sheriff is a stock figure. He is a former professional football player who gets elected time and gain because of his professional career. The mostly petty crimes that come his way are easily dealt with. The more complicated crime of murder forces him to grow and stretch in new directions. And of course there is the attraction between Elizabeth and himself. His daughter is spending the summer and he also has worries about how she is getting along as well. Elizabeth's son is also a stock figure. The angry rebellious teenager who resents his mother dragging him away from the comfortable life he had been enjoying. He tests the limits of how far he can go and he is lucky that the sheriff has a soft spot for both him and his mother. He does come through when it counts. The setting is believable. Small town residents can be cruel to outsiders. The town pretty much closes ranks against them and there is really nowhere for them to turn. Anyone who has spent time in a small town will recognize Still Creek, Minnesota. The book is read by Joyce Bean who is an Agatha Award winner and a very fine reader. She captures each character perfectly and keeps the listener involved in the story as well as untangling all the lines of the plot. This is not really a thriller. It does not take the reader on a roller coaster of excitement and fear. But it is a quiet character study and a picture of three people trying to find out where they are in life and how they should live that life. § Sally Fellows is a retired history teacher with an MA in history and an avid reader of mysteries.
Reviewed by Sally A. Fellows, August 2012
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