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Book Review - Aunt Dimity: Detective

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Aunt Dimity: Detective
by Nancy Atherton
Viking Penguin, October 2001
230 pages, $22.95
ISBN 0-670-03021-X
Aunt Dimity series #7

Lori Shepherd, happily married wife and the mother of three-year-old twins, returns home from a family visit to Boston and finds that a murder has been committed in Finch--the first murder since 1872. The vicar and his wife, Teddy and Lilian Bunting, are upset because the villagers will not confide in the police. The reason? The victim, Prunella "Pruneface" Hooper was disliked village-wide and, for one reason or another, almost everyone wanted her dead. When Lori finds her favorite villager, Kit Anscombe-Smith, under police suspicion for the murder and upset enough to consider leaving Finch, she begins her investigation under Aunt Dimity's guidance and insistence. "Crime has a way of contaminating all who come in contact with it." insists Aunt Dimity. "We mustn't allow the infection to spread."

Lori starts her investigation with the Pym sisters, in their late nineties but sharp and knowledgeable. She finds the amiable and mysterious Nicholas Fox, Lilian's nephew, at the Pyms' house. An innocent request from the sisters lead the two of them to interview six villagers: Billy Barlow, who suddenly left town on the morning of the murder; George Wetherhead, who has been receiving a secret early morning visitor; Miranda Morrow, the village's very modern witch; Sally Pyne, tearoom owner and the church's flower arranger until Pruneface came along; Dick Peacock, who has been receiving secret deliveries in the early morning hours; and Peggy Taxman, Pruneface's closest friend and only mourner, with a secret of her own.

Further complicating matters as the investigation continues, Lori and Nicholas become the chief topic of village gossip, especially when Bill, Lori's husband, has been detained in London on business.

Lori continues to learn and grow as the series continues and we, the readers, continue to find that she has weaknesses as well as strengths. Bill is still something of an enigma. The villagers become flesh-and-blood people as their secrets are revealed and displayed. This is a nicely paced cozy mystery and I enjoyed it.

If you have never read an Aunt Dimity book, I strongly recommend you begin with Aunt Dimity's Death, an excellent book and the first in the series. It also helps to read the two previous books, Aunt Dimity's Christmas and Aunt Dimity Beats the Devil.

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