A Bone to Pick

Overview

Death comes calling on a small-town librarian whose life is passing her by.

Aurora "Roe" Teagarden's fortunes change when a deceased acquaintance names her as heir to a rather substantial estate, including money, jewelry, and a house complete with a skull hidden in a window seat. Roe concludes that the elderly women has purposely left her a murder to solve. So she must identify the victim and figure out which one of her new, ordinary-seeming neighbors is a murderer-without putting herself in deadly danger.

Editorial Reviews

Aurora Teagarden, who made a strong series debut (in Real Murders ) as a southern librarian turned amateur sleuth, suddenly finds herself very rich when elderly spinster Jane Engle dies and leaves her a fortune. When Aurora goes to take possession of Miss Engle's home, she finds the place ransacked. Poking around, she turns up a ghoulish artifact the intruder missed: a bashed-in human skull hidden in a cleverly disguised window seat. Fearing that her mild benefactor was actually a vicious killer, Aurora is relieved to find a note the deceased left behind pointing her suspicions elsewhere. She delves into the lives of her new neighbors, masking her scrutiny with Southern charm, and discovers that over the years two men have disappeared from the neighborhood. Harris provides some genuinely funny scenes as Aurora breezily unravels the murderer's identity, but the plot is just too farfetched, even when supported by an appealing cast of Southern gothic characters. Harris, who struck the right note in Real Murders , here unfortunately goes beyond the humorous social satire that is her metier, striving for a wildly exaggerated parody of southern life. But with three solid novels behind her, this talented mystery writer will surely regain her focus the next time out.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Charlaine Harris

Charlaine Harris, who has been writing mysteries for over twenty years, is a native of Mississippi. Born and raised in the Delta, she began training for her career as soon as she could hold a pencil. Though her early works consisted largely of poems about ghosts and (later) teenage angst, she began writing plays when she attended Rhodes College in Memphis, and graduated to books a few years later. After publishing two stand-alone mysteries, Harris decided to establish a series. She began the lighthearted Aurora Teagarden books with Real Murders, which garnered an Agatha nomination. Harris's protagonist, a diminutive Georgia librarian whose life never turns out quite the way she planned, kept Harris busy for several books, but finally Harris (and Aurora) grew restless. The result of this restlessness was the much edgier Shakespeare series -- set not in England, but in rural Arkansas. The heroine of the Shakespeare books is Lily Bard, a tough and taciturn woman whose life has been permanently reshaped by a terrible crime and its consequences. In Shakespeare's Landlord, the first in the series, Lily is caught at a moment when the shell she's built around herself is just beginning to crack, and the books capture Lily's emotional re-entry into the world, while also being sound mysteries. Harris's latest venture is a series about a telepathic barmaid in southern Louisiana. The first book in the series, Dead Until Dark, won the Anthony for best paperback mystery of 2001. Each book about Sookie Stackhouse (and her dealings with vampires and werewolves and other creatures of the night) has gathered more readers to enjoy the books' unique blend of mystery, humor, romance, and the supernatural. The Sookie books are also being read in Japan, Spain, Greece, and Great Britain. In addition to her work as a writer, Harris is married and the mother to three children. A former weight lifter and karate student, she is an avid reader and cinemaphile. She is a member of the vestry of St. James Episcopal Church. Harris is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the American Crime Writers League. She is a member of the board of Sisters in Crime, and alternates with Joan Hess as president of the Arkansas Mystery Writers Alliance. (c) 2004 Charlaine Harris

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Additional Info

Imprint

Berkley

Filesize

369.18 KB

Number of Pages

272

eBook ISBN

9781429595223