The star: Suzanne Gray, dressed in a white dress, white shoes and lacy gloves, a blue ribbon tying back her dark hair, holding a bouquet of white roses.
The music: “All You Need is Love” from a tape.
The set: Lying on a white linen cloth over the grave of the newly dead Richard Hovey.
The extras: A bottle of sleeping pills; a typed suicide note stating she can not live without him neatly folded into one glove; the extremely cold weather freezing Suzanne to death.
So opens Judy Fitzwater’s Jennifer Marsh mystery DYING TO GET HER MAN.
Richard Hovey, a criminal lawyer, appeared to have died as the result of an accidental fall down the stairs in his home. Four days later, Suzanne’s body was found on his grave. She had told people that they were going to be married even though no one had ever seen them together or knew about any relationship between them. Because of the note, her death was considered to be a homicide.
Jennifer Marsh didn’t buy into that theory and, with the aid of her writing club friends and Suzanne’s niece, Suzie, set about trying to learn what really happened to Suzanne.
Meanwhile, Belle Renard, an old girlfriend of Jennifer’s boyfriend, Sam Culpepper, shows up saying her life is in danger because Richard successfully got Simon DeSoto, convicted of murdering his wife, out of jail. She claims she had developed a relationship with DeSoto to try to learn if he had killed his wife so she could write about it. In trying to protect herself, she had posted an engagement announcement stating she and Sam were engaged and was acting as if they were going to be married soon.
One favorite part: after reading the engagement notice about Sam and Belle, Jennifer thinks, “Anger was so much easier to deal with than hurt, but, in truth, she wasn’t much good dealing with either one. Maybe that’s why she wrote. It gave her control. Before relationships got too complicated or messy, she could always kill off one of the people involved.
Like all the Jennifer Marsh stories I have read thus far, this one moves quickly and, though it has many twists and an unexpected ending, it’s well-written, easy to follow, and the characters have distinct personalities. It doesn’t have as much wit as some of the others, though. I have two more books in the series on my nightstand, waiting to be read. ( )