Murder Shoots The Bull
A Southern Sisters Mystery
by Anne George
I have enjoyed the southern sisters several times on audio books - I always have an audio book in my car - but this is the first print version by George for me. One of my favorite bloggers awards her reads bookmarks from 1-5 as a grading system. I love bookmarks; but I honor her great blog; I do not want to plagiarize, so I am experimenting. I am trying out delights first of all - delights 1-5. My idea of delight is a good book with a good cup of coffee within easy reach; thus my symbol for delight is:
Murder Shoots The Bull gets 4 delights. Again, I am experimenting here. I think that I will only award a book 5 delights if in addition to being a great, delightful read, it has more depth and is more complex than a traditional cozy mystery. Cozy mysteries are gentle mysteries typically set in genteel settings like English country houses or villages. They have very little violence other than the murder. The victim doesn’t suffer. Usually death is instantaneous with no prolonged suffering. Usually the mystery is solved by an amateur sleuth, all loose ends are tied up, and the villain caught and punished by the novel’s end - again with no graphic description. Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple Novels typify this mystery subgenre. (Definition derived mainly from that of Erin Martin of Cozy Mystery Dot Com and from that of About Dot Com)
In Murder Shoots The Breeze, Patricia Anne and Mary Alice have to solve a convoluted mystery involving blackmail, family issues, an investment club, strange women, old love affairs, and, of course, the murder. The cozy setting is a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. The amateur sleuths are 60 year old Patricia Anne, a retired English teacher, and her 65 year old sister Mary Alice, a wealthy widow many times over. The fun of this series is the relationship between these feisty, funny, southern sisters.
The way my sister Mary Alice got us arrested was simple enough; she hit the president of the bank over the head with my umbrella. Grabbed it right away from me and 'thunk' let him have it. I think he was more surprised than hurt. There was hardly any blood, and everyone knows how much head wounds bleed. There wasn't even a very big knot. Probably wouldn't have been one at all if he'd had any hair. But he screeched like she'd killed him and the security guard came rushing in, saw Mr. Jones staggering around holding his head, and pulled a gun on us. He looked like Barney Fife, the guard did, and chances were the bullet was in his pocket, but you just don't take a chance on things like that. At least I don't. Sister said later that she might have hit the guard, too, at least knocked the gun out of his hand, if he hadn't looked so pitiful standing there shaking like a leaf.4 Delights!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment