Product Description

When the musical director of Benni Harper's church is called away, Benni gets "volunteered" to take over a children's play already in rehearsal. But the production comes to a screeching halt when Benni discovers the body of the church handyman right in front of the altar.

With a growing cast of suspects, and a small girl as the only witness to the crime, Benni must unravel a plot of theft and murder before it's curtains for her.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #222963 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. No wonder Benni Harper fans are so faithful—the woman can't even stay out of trouble in church. At the start of Fowler's topnotch 12th cozy to feature the quilter and amateur sleuth (after 2004's Broken Dishes), Benni stumbles on the body of church handyman Walt Adams, who's oozing blood onto the sanctuary's new carpeting. Who would hurt a sweet old caretaker? On the other hand, what did anyone really know about Walt's past? Both the policemen in Benni's life—her Latino hunk hubby, Gabe Ortiz, and Ford "Hud" Hudson, who'd love to be more than her friend—warn her to leave the detective work to the professionals, but as usual, Benni leaps first and thinks later. Between Walt's murder and the disappearance of a valuable violin from the San Celina, Calif., folk museum, Gabe and Benni have their hands full. The surprise visit of Gabe's long-estranged cousin, Luis, adds to their difficulties, as he and Gabe seek to work through their differences, and Benni seeks to referee. Gabe's reluctance to open up to Benni propels the three-year Ortiz-Harper union into some rough waters. A heart-hammering hostage situation leads to a highly unexpected ending, while most readers will approve of the almost-but-not-quite-resolved Benni-Hud relationship. <
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From Booklist
In San Celina, California, Benni Harper is curator of the local folk art museum, and her husband, Gabe Ortiz, is chief of police. There's a huge tangle of friends, relations, and family members attached to the couple: in this tale, the focus is on Gabe's cousin, Luis, who is close as a brother, and Benni's grandma, Dove, who raised her and who has roped her into helping with the children's Christmas pageant at the Baptist Church. Then Benni finds the church's reclusive handyman murdered in the sanctuary; meanwhile, an antique violin goes missing from Benni's museum. The solving of one crime becomes intertwined with that of the other, as Fowler mixes the mystery plot with some fairly didactic tableaux about the value of faith, the complexities of memory and marital fidelity, immigration procedure and practice, and how the police manage hostage situations. A series that had been progressing nicely seems stalled a bit here, bur fans' interest in Benni may get them through the clunky exposition. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Benni's warmhearted openness and her deep faith make her an engaging companion, indeed."
-- Booklist (Booklist )

Customer Reviews

Everything you love about her books and more!
Earlene Fowler's Books stand out because of the relationships of her characters. This book gives you so many insights into her regular cast of characters that this alone is worth the read, but this book really surprised me. I had several things figured out pretty closely and then she threw me completely. By the end I found myself tearing up on the plane as I read the end of the book.
Hud, Gabe, everyone else show us new facets of their characters and the new characters are the keys to a lot of this. One character I really hope to see more of in up coming books. The mystery is a good one, it held a surprise I didn't see coming but as always, the real gift of these books is the time spent with characters who have become like friends over the years. This was a great addition to a wonderful series. I won't go over the plot here because other reviews will and I don't want to know that much before I read it, just if it was a good read, this is a very good read.

A fun read!
This was another great offering from Earlene Fowler. The ending was a total shocker for me...always a good thing in a mystery! The characters were just wonderful - the little girl, Angelina is so sweet. I was actually hoping that she'd be a recurring character, but it looks like she won't. But the characters and plot were fantastic as always! Definitely worth a read - and of course you need to go back and read all the ones before it!

A delectable story: 4+
The cover of this mystery novel by Earlene Fowler is very appealing and draws the reader inside to find out more about its contents (notice the Delectable Mountains quilt pattern incorporated into the cover). Fowler is now a seasoned author with a dozen books under her fingers. Her protagonist, Benni Harper, the folk museum curator and amateur sleuth, once again finds herself mixed up in a murder investigation. It seems someone has whacked the custodian of San Celina's First Baptist church, one Walt Adams. Benni is the one who finds him, and, as usual, the question is, why Walt?

The story opens with Gramma, Dove Lyons, volunteering the two of them to take over directing the church's children in a production of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. However, this very adult work has been adapted as a children's musical play by the church's music director, Lily Sanders, and is to be this year's Christmas holiday offering. Lily has suddenly been called away on a family matter and will be gone for some time. It's early November and there is no time to waste in getting the children ready for the show.

Benni is married to hunky police chief, Gabe (Gabriel) Ortiz, and there's lots going on in their relationship, the second marriage for each. When Gabe's look-alike cousin, Luis Ortiz, suddenly appears on the scene, things start out okay, but, eventually, Luis's presence creates serious anxiety in Gabe. Add to that Benni's involvement in the Walt Adams business, and the plot begins to get pretty thick.

This book is easy to read and I would even suggest it for teens. It is not a gripping mystery. In fact, the mystery sometimes seems incidental to the stories of the lives of the book's many characters. However, it is well-written and fluid. (I don't usually mention editing errors because they exist in almost every book I read, including my own. This one, however, has more than the usual number, including two incidences of two words being repeated [ex., the thing the thing]. Finding such errors is what editing staffs are for and I would expect, after this many books by Fowler, her editors would make certain the copy was a clean as possible before printing).

Carolyn Rowe Hill