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4.0 out of 5 stars
13th Chris Bennett mystery is entertaining, pleasant outing, Jan 9 2003
We have previously expressed our enjoyment of the prior dozen escapades of ex-nun Christine Bennett, an amateur sleuth, wife of a brand new (ex-cop) NYPD lawyer, and mother of young toddler Eddie. This springtime story occurs shortly after Father's Day, which witnessed the murder of one of the "Morris Avenue Boys", who had been friends since boyhood for some 40 years and regularly met for reunions all this time. Our leading lady was asked to investigate the murder of one of the nine (by one of the granddaughters), all of whom, except one out-of-towner who did not attend, nor one who had previously died, were obvious suspects and being investigated (more or less, we don't get the details...) by the police.Despite many days of questioning the principals, the widow, the wives and anybody else who might have a shard of knowledge about the group, Chris has almost as many questions as she does answers. Yet her persistence has turned up a few leads that the police have as yet to discover. Thus a pretty good premise leads us through the life and times of the men, especially the murder victim, Arthur Wien, a famous novelist, to a fairly surprising conclusion. Wien's celebrity life, his women chasing, money borrowing, and messy divorce, fueled much of the grounds for motive, still difficult to find among the great chums. We picked up a clue mid-book that gave us an inkling of the outcome, an "eureka" not common to reading the stories in this series. Even with that precognition, we were held in suspense until nearly the final chapter when all becomes clear and Chris once again is the lever that elicits a confession from the apparently guilty party. Interestingly, whether it was really that party or not is somewhat left to the speculation of the reader. We enjoy the very predictability of Lee Harris' stories of which we suppose some might tire. We have often characterized the leading lady and her family as wholesome and caring, creating dependably pleasant tales that don't need violence and gore, nor foul language or explicit sex, to capture and sustain our interest. Isn't that what a good mystery is all about ?!?!
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