Product Description

The latest in this enchanting and fast-selling series, featuring the beloved ghost Aunt Dimity, opens in a picturesque English cottage where the lovable Lori Shepherd is up to her elbows in pureed carrots and formula bottles, striving to be the perfect mother to twins! Luckily, a beautiful Italian nanny arrives just in time--so Lori can help settle the local civil war stirred up by a visiting archaeologist's excavation.

With Reginald, the stuffed pink rabbit and Edmond Terrance, the stuffed tiger in tow, Lori hunts down a missing document, and the archaeologist digs up a lot more than artifacts. It is Aunt Dimity's magic blue notebook that provides the key to buried secrets and domestic malice, and shows all the residents of Finch that even the darkest acts can be overcome by forgiveness.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #188589 in Books
• Published on: 1999-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 288 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780140275698
• BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
• Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

From Publishers Weekly
Aunt Dimity, the ghost with the flowing handwriting, returns for a fourth outing with her living partner, Lori Shepherd, in this fluffy village cozy. Now living in England, Lori and her lawyer husband, Bill Willis, have welcomed twin boys, swelling the mostly retired population of Finch. Living in the cottage left to Lori by her mother's close friend, Dimity Westwood, Lori is thankful for the arrival of the local and unmarried Francesca Sciaparelli to aid with the double joys of motherhood. In this corpseless tale, the mystery concerns a document stolen from the vicarage. Finch has become divided over the apparent Roman treasure trove discovered by archeologist Adrian Culver in a village field. An obscure 19th-century document, proving the find is a hoax, is the stolen item. Asked to resolve the dilemma, Lori, a rare book expert, is aided by Aunt Dimity who communicates with her ghostly handwriting in a special blue journal. Atherton produces a diverse cast of villagers, especially the formidable Peggy Kitchen, a veritable locomotive who is determined to chuck Culver and his archeological miscellany out of the schoolhouse before her well-planned Harvest Festival. Featuring Lori's cherubic twins, a number of stuffed animals and the triumph of true love, Atherton delivers pure cozy entertainment. Mystery Guild selection; author tour. (Mar.) FYI: Viking will simultaneously publish Aunt Dimity's Good Deed in paper.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Atherton's Aunt Dimity series is cozy as a warm fire and soothing as a hot cup of tea. Aunt Dimity has been dead for years, of course, but her spirit lives on in the rose-covered cottage and the blue notebooks she's bequeathed to her niece Lori. Whenever Lori's baffled, she opens the magic notebooks, and Aunt Dimity's handwriting appears, offering pithy advice. Lately, Lori has her hands full with her four-month-old twin sons. Fortunately, a nanny appears on her doorstep just when Lori's amateur sleuthing skills are in demand: the vicar discovers a valuable document missing from his study, townsfolk report witches in the meadow, a visiting archaeologist digs up some malicious gossip, and an all-out war among the Harvest Festival planners seems imminent. Fortunately, Lori's gift for unraveling even the most challenging mystery pays off, leaving villagers at peace and the new nanny happily in love. Sweet, heartwarming fare for all British cozy fans. Emily Melton

From Kirkus Reviews
Dimity Westwood is as dead as ever, but she's still on hand- -a reassuring presence whose words appear magically in a blue notebook--to offer counsel and consolation to her legatee Lori Shepherd when fighting breaks out between Dr. Adrian Culver, the Oxford archeologist who's commandeered St. George's schoolhouse for his digging detritus, and village empress Peggy Kitchen, who'd been promised the schoolhouse for the Harvest Festival to put Finch back in touch with its ancient customs. St. George's vicar, Rev. Theodore Bunting, could have Adrian packing in a minute if he could only show him Disappointments in Devling, the pamphlet in which Bunting's Victorian predecessor, Rev. Cornelius Gladwell, confessed to having salted Scrag End field with archaeological artifacts in protest of an earlier dig. But someone has pinched the vicar's copy from his study, so he asks Lori if she can round up another of the only nine copies in existence before the conflict escalates into something worse. No fear. Though Lori, newly delivered of twins, will confront witches and long-buried romances, rumors of ghosts and aliens, nothing will go wrong among the dramatis personae--all of them as carefully matched as the pieces of a good tea service--that can't be mended by Dimity's advice, a little tactful conversation, and some of Sally Pyne's lemonbars. Atherton's placid fourth (Aunt Dimity's Good Deed, 1996, etc.) confirms her status as the coziest cozy of them all. (Mystery Guild selection; author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

GOOD FUN AND GOOD READING
Imagine a contemporary mystery sans bodies, blood or bludgeoning with a sleuthing heroine who is not a former forensic expert and you're getting close to Aunt Dimity Digs In, the fourth in a series of gentle, pleasant mysteries replete with quaint cottages, pots of tea, and a cast of eccentrics.

Lori Shepard lives in a cozy English country cottage with her lawyer husband and infant twin sons. Worn to a frazzle by the babies' demands, she is rescued by the unexpected appearance of an expert nanny, Francesca Sciaparelli - think a statuesque, voluptuous Mary Poppins. But Lori's new found moments of relaxation are cut short by a cry for help from the local vicar. He fears an outbreak of civil war in the village of Finch due to a rancorous dispute involving the use of the schoolhouse. Peggy Kitchen, self-crowned queen of Finch, wants the building for her vaunted Harvest Festival but it has been assigned to a visiting archaeologist, Dr. Adam Culver, as headquarters for his dig.

Although it seems that any combat in a place as benign as Finch would be waged with popcorn, Lori promises the worried vicar that she will try to find a copy of a pamphlet stolen from his desk. It seems that this mysterious document would prove there is no reason to dig near Finch and solve the squabble. Obviously, the thief entered through never-locked French doors, but who could have taken the pamphlet?

With the aid of the late Aunt Dimity, who communicates with Lori by writing in a magic blue notebook, the mystery is eventually solved. But what a rare time is had along the way as Lori meets a witch who lives near the vicarage, and assists her followers via email. She swears she saw two other witches worshiping the moon the night the pamphlet was stolen. The local pub owners, logical suspects since a famous dig might put Finch on the map and bring them additional revenue, are convinced that the figures seen that night were actually aliens.

Along the way romance blossoms between the comely, capable Francesca and Dr. Culver. What does it matter if Lori needs a little hocus-pocus from dear departed Aunt Dimity to bring the lovers together and peace to Finch? All's fair in love and war.

Aunt Dimity Digs In is good fun and good reading, best done with lemon bars and piping hot tea at the ready.

Please read this book on a rainy afternoon
The beauty of the Dimity series is watching the characters development from book to book. Reading this books feels like a visit with your dearest friend that you only get to see once a year. You can pick right up where you left off without skipping a beat.

If you read this one first the earlier books will loose a little something but please do read them all!

A Great Book
I thought that this was a fabulous book. I really enjoyed the way the author wove the story, I think she did a great job. This was the first book I read in the series, and I plan to read all of the other books that she has written about Dimity.