A Stillness in Bethlehem (Hardcover)

Since Armenia declared independence only a few months before, Cavanaugh Street has been inundated with refugees, and Father Tibor has worked his fingers to the bone organizing food and shelter, and sending supplies back to Armenia. (For a couple of books, everyone on Cavanaugh Street put up a few refugees until they got on their feet - after all, you never know who might be a 3rd or 4th cousin. Changes phased in gradually after that: the neighborhood expanded a bit, and Tibor's church had enough kids to have an Armenian Orthodox parochial school, and so on. But that's in the future at this point in the series.)

Soon after Bennis and Gregor get home from the Thanksgiving fiasco in _A Feast of Murder_, Tibor collapses from exhaustion and from not eating enough. ("I'm still furious...I mean, I'm rich, Gregor. Tibor doesn't have to starve himself to feed a lot of refugees." "I think you got that across to him in the long run, Bennis." "I should have been able to get it across to him in the *short* run.")

Anyhow, Gregor and Bennis are now checking Tibor into a hotel in Bethlehem, Vermont, for a much-needed rest. Why Bethlehem? Tibor's always wanted to see the Christmas pageant held there every year. He first heard of it in his early days as a refugee in Israel, before he immigrated to the U.S. And Bennis, whose connections put Gregor in mind of a spy ring, managed to get hold of some good hotel rooms, even though it's the height of Bethlehem's tourist season.

The ACLU, of course, has a standing offer to sue the town over the pageant, but nobody's bitten so far. The pageant, after all, turns such a profit that Bethlehem's budget for the year doesn't need too much in the way of higher taxes. Nobody wants to be first to complain, certainly.

Until now, that is. Patricia Feld Verek, a writer of true-crime novels and a spiteful woman, has moved to Bethlehem with her husband, Jan-Mark (an artist in the most offensive modern mode). She's working on a book about children who commit murder, with case histories; he's spending his time having affairs with various local figures, both male and female. (Some are prominent, some aren't.) Tisha decides to take up the ACLU's offer - not because she cares about the pageant, but because she has a taste for a bit of drama. She gets more than she bargained for - she's shot to death before she can actually see her lawyer. But was the lawsuit the motive for her murder?

Gregor happens to have arrived not only after Tisha's recent murder, as well as that of gentle old Dinah Ketchum, expert quilt-maker; the local paper has been running a 3-part series on his most recent case. So he's asked to consult by the local police department...

There are more subplots and interesting characters than I can list here; Gregor himself is having trouble keeping track by the end. Don't worry about Tibor; he perks right up when he finds out about the newspaper series on Gregor, then becomes obsessed with the idea that Bennis might be trying to go on a diet. (He has an interesting conspiracy theory about diets.) Candy Spear, who has the role of Mary in the pageant, is in an abusive marriage, but she's been gaining confidence from her work on stage, so that story has a satisfying ending. Bennis made the mistake of giving Gregor a book about J. Edgar Hoover as an early Christmas present; he now has a kind of anti-conspiracy theory that's driving her crazy.

A few final things I should mention. If you're a big fan of contemporary art (e.g. the kind that seems designed to get into controversies over public funding), or of true crime writers, etc., be warned that the Vereks are not nice people. The woman who is Bethlehem's Episcopal priest is into New Age fads of various sorts; she's not a sympathetic character either. (All of these characters are handled well enough, as far as I'm concerned, but a reader who's into these sorts of things might be miffed that Haddam doesn't take them seriously.)