Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This uninspired addition to the Aurora Teagarden series (The Julius House, etc.) opens memorably with Lawrenceton, Ga.'s premiere librarian adjusting her lawn chair and observing Angel Youngblood, her bodyguard and all-around helper, cut the grass. From a plane that has been circling overhead drops the recently dead body of Detective Sergeant Jack Burns, Aurora's local law-enforcement nemesis. Aurora, or Roe as her friends call her, sets out to find out who killed him and why her garden was targeted for the corpse. As she conducts her unorthodox search, she has the nagging thought that perhaps the death has something to do with Angel or her husband, Shelby, or perhaps with her own husband, Martin, and his mysterious and dangerous past. She is not reassured when the FBI is called in, nor when several other murders are committed. In between visiting crime scenes and attending company banquets (the one-dimensional Martin is a bigshot exec), Roe also deals with the post-honeymoon letdown of her two-year-old marriage and ponders the strangely intimate relationship she has developed with her bodyguards. True Teagarden enthusiasts may feel rewarded by this latest episode, but Harris is a bit too down to earth this time outthe suspense barely cranks up before the solution descends with a thud not unlike that of Jack Burns's corpse. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Usually outspoken and witty, Aurora Teagarden is nearly struck dumb when a body falls from a circling plane and lands in her backyard, barely missing her bodyguard and buddy, Angel. The body belongs to a local policemanno great friendbut strange events follow: government agents appear; someone clobbers Angel's husband; and a co-worker at the library is murdered after a showdown with Aurora. In her likable, indomitable fashion, Aurora sleuths in self-defense. Infectious prose, engaging characters, crafty plotting; recommended. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
More angst for the author's sweet southern heroine Aurora (Roe) Teagarden (Shakespeare's Landlord, p. 860, etc.), now married to mega-mogul Martin Bartell, working part-time at the library, and enjoying the friendship and security provided by Angel and Shelby Youngblood, who live in the apartment over the garage. But everything changes one sunny afternoon when the body of local police detective Jack Burns comes crashing onto her lawn, dropped from a small plane. Roe and Burns were mild antagonists, and so she's subjected to close questioning by Sheriff Lanier of the Lawrenceton police, whose officers include Arthur Smith, once Roe's fiancé, now separating from wife Lynn, and stoic Paul Allison, briefly married to Roe's reporter friend Sally. Meanwhile, other disquieting incidents are piling up--phone calls with silence on the other end; a ribbon tied on Madeleine the cat; delivery of flowers minus a sender's name; and, most seriously, an attack on Roe's library co-worker after a low-keyed confrontation between them, and yet another on Shelby Youngblood that puts him in the hospital. There's more, but not until much later, in the aftermath of Jack Burns's funeral, does the light dawn for Roe--barely in time to effect a last-minute rescue. Harris's gossipy, just-between-us-girls style is as ingratiating as ever, but it can't begin to redeem a cop-out plot as thin and unconvincing as this one. More meat and less icing might help future episodes of Roe's eventful life. (Author tour)
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