Scarecrow: A Mystery [Hardcover]

The next morning Paul Nelson, the motel owner, offers Jo a job as a motel doctor. The motels have to have a doctor on call for emergencies, much like the previous night. She immediately turns down his offer.

After driving around, picking up a young girl who was hitchhiking - Becca, and finding herself back at the motel that evening, she finally decides to accept his offer. It takes her a little over a week to find someone to take over her office and get her ex-boyfriend to find someone to sublet her apartment.

Jo and Becca have become good friends, but her family is quite different. Jo believes their boarders are none other than the Milacs, the couple from her first night at the motel, and sets about trying to find out more about them.

She has run into Tom Canby, and keeps running into him. He even assists her in her investigation as she doesn't know the area as well.

When Becca mysteriously leaves town with her aunt, Jo is concerned something more sinister is going on. She steps up her investigation and ends up in danger.

Jo is a terrific character. I can just see her tooling around New Jersey on her motorbike. She is great with Becca and has fit right into life in remote New Jersey, but still misses Manhattan at times. I like the relationship with Tom as well. She is constantly putting him off but isn't quite sure why.

As Jo is finding herself and getting her self-confidence back, she is getting to know everyone and even has Thanksgiving dinner at the Nelson's. Their son took off some time ago. The not knowing is taking its toll on them.

This remote location in New Jersey is a terrific setting for a mystery.

I highly recommend this book and look forward to reading the next one! I got to meet Robin Hathaway last night. I gained additional insight into both of her series. Please read my review of her other new book "The Doctor Dines in Prague."

   Dr. Fenimore, a thirtysomething bachelor, is an old-fashioned Philadelphia physician who still makes house calls and, often accompanied by Nurse Doyle, his assistant sleuth, dabbles in criminal investigation.

   With Scarecrow, Hathaway launches a new murder mystery series featuring Dr. Jo Banks, a female version of Doctor Fenimore. An almost-thirty-year-old woman, Jo is running away from the flotsam and jetsam of a botched career and a tired love affair. She abandons her practice in New York City when she misdiagnoses Sophie Miller, a young girl who dies of spinal meningitis.

   Numbed and anesthesized, Jo flees to Bayfield, a small town in the boondocks of southern New Jersey, about fifty miles from Philadelphia and in near the marshlands of the Cohansey River.

   Jo checks in at the Oakview Motor Lodge, a two-star motel owned and operated by Paul and Maggie Nelson. She soon meets a teenage girl named Becca Borovy; Ema, Becca's eccentric aunt; and (the plot thickens) a tall, dark, and handsome "Robin Hood" named Tom Canby.

   You know you're in the boonies when the nearest Wal-Mart is no closer than twenty miles away. South Jersey abounds in names such as Polecat Corner, Snakeskin Road, Crab's Neck Road, Possum Hollow Road, the Blue Arrow Diner, and the Lenape Trailer Park.

   Bayfield's one claim to fame is a nuclear power plant. Black against the sky, its cooling tower is a giant chimney spewing clouds of steam. Flashing lights circle its gaping mouth, warning airplanes to keep away.

   Immediately on her arrival in Bayfield, Jo treats a woman who becomes suddenly ill, and is offered a deal to become a "motel doctor," a person on call to serve the medical needs of various motels in the area.

   Having fallen in love with small-town life and the people of Bayfield, Jo accepts the offer. Breathing a sigh of relief to have escaped the urban rat race. Zooming around Bayfield on her newly purchased motorcyle, Jo is happy to have found a place so peaceful and serene, far from the violence of big-city life.

   But when a dead man is found disguised as a scarecrow in found in a local farmer's field, Jo discovers a serpent in the pastoral Eden. And, one can see it coming, she places her own life in jeopardy by playing the dubious role of "lone woman who courageously, but foolhardily, investigates a dark and deserted house." Like the scarecrow in her favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz, Jo desperately needs a brain.

   Scarecrow is an easy and enjoyable read. The chapters are short and the plot moves quickly. The dialogue is snappy, and the heroine, Dr. Jo Banks, is an engaging and likeable character. Above all, the author writes with a delectable sense of humor that will cause you to smile, chuckle, and laugh out loud.

A charming work of escapist fiction.