Book #41: Murder by the Book (Whitney Book 21)

Title: Murder by the Book
Author: Betsy Brannon Green

Kennedy Killingsworth is a twenty-four year-old, newly divorced librarian in small-town Georgia, getting ready to close up the library trailers for the evening when Foster Scoggins and his niece, Heaven, come in seeking help on a report to help Heaven so she won't have to repeat first grade yet again. A couple of hours later, Foster turns up dead, apparently a suicide, and Killingsworth just knows that he wasn't planning to off himself a few hours earlier, so she decides to figure out who killed him and why.

Killingsworth gets involved with a whole cast of characters from rural Georgia, including her ex-husband, the deputy, a nosy fellow librarian, Miss Eugenia (who is apparently the subject of several other Green books, but I found her annoying instead of endearing and probably wouldn't pick up those books for just that reason). While they mystery was pretty twisty, with several people contributing variously to the nefarious deeds, Green's overuse of the world "Altima" made the whole thing relatively transparent. I also thought the four guys vying for Kennedy's attention was overkill, excuse the pun. And while we're talking about death, I don't understand why the cover art includes bloody bullet holes. The murders and attempted murders in the story (except for a brief episode at the very end) didn't include any bullets whatsoever. I guess there were no stock photos featuring electrocutions that were deemed appropriate cover art.

Another thing I've noticed since reading the Whitney nominees is the phenomenon of the main character's mother being a perfect homemaker (often somewhat overbearing in nature). I can think of at least five books with this type of character: Methods of Madness, Murder by the Book, Previously Engaged, Lemon Tart (okay, she is the main character, but she's of the same age as the other mothers), the aunt in Gravity vs. the Girl (who in the absence of Samantha's real mother functions as the mother character), and probably a few more.  What does the presence of these characters over and over say about our culture? The daughters can be spunky screwups, but they'll eventually turn into mothers who know because their own moms iron sheets and make their own pie crusts?