Kansas troubles

Newly married California museum curator Benni Harper travels to Kansas to meet her in-laws in this third of Fowler's quilt-pattern series (after Irish Chain). Police chief Gabe Ortiz, her husband, assures her that everyone in his small hometown will love her, but Benni, whose father, eccentric Aunt Dove and Uncle Arnie are driving from California to be with them, isn't so sure. At a party given by Gabe's sister, she introduces herself to Tyler Brown, whose quilt on the sister's living room wall she admires. Tyler, who says she left her Amish family a year ago to pursue a singing career, is visibly upset and says she's being harassed. Later that evening, Tyler's body is found, her head bashed in, leaving Gabe's childhood friends suspects in the murder. With the help of her sister-in-law, Benni attempts to identify the killer and, in the process, learns more about the pasts of her husband and his friends than she's sure she wants to know. Complicating matters further and adding comic relief to this grim tale are periodic calls from her family as they work their way across the country. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

As cowgirl-turned-quilter Benni Harper might have expected, marriage to San Celina (Cal.) police chief Gabe Ortiz is no bed of roses. On her maiden voyage to Derby, Kansas, to meet her bridegroom's family, she finds them up to their Stetsons in murder. Local feed-and-grain scion Rob Harlow's newest girlfriend, country singer Tyler Brown, has been bashed to death with a brick, and everyone in town is a suspect. It's an especially rich field, since Tyler was AWOL from an Amish husband who couldn't get divorced as long as she lived, and her current activities weren't calculated to win new friends. Despite her distracting misgivings about her own husband's secrets, Benni's sharp eye for quilt patterns provides the crucial clue. And for that matter almost the only clue in Benni's third outing (Irish Chain, 1995, etc.), more notable for its double- wide raft of suspects and its affectionate prairie background than for its tight plotting.