Chris' Fish Place

Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley.

                Beverly is not Mrs. Fletcher.  This is not Cabot Cove.  The dead body isn’t freshly dead.

                Needless to say, Beverly is not having a good day.  She isn’t sure about her income and then there is a skeleton in her backyard.

                Springer’s mystery isn’t so much a mystery as opposed to a novel about family, community, and belief.  It is about how first impressions can be both wrong and right, as well as defining what family is.

                It should be noted that the mystery does deal with child abuse.

                The story also deals with how society views older women, in particular those who are not traditional, and how much of the time they are written off as crazy cranks.

                It is refreshing book too because the central characters are all women who are not discussing boyfriends or husbands.  They are not in competition with each other, and, at the very least, they respect each other.  This more than makes up for the somewhat obvious mystery of the skeleton as well as the low key creepy factor.

                The use of art in the book is well done.  Not only in the terms of it being Beverly’s chosen profession but also in the lives of her daughters.  Her daughters are one of the best things about the book, concerned but not bitchy.  What Springer gives us is a family, a true family with squabbles, but those of all families.