This engaging mystery is second in a series called Bucket
List Mysteries in which our mature heroine Francine
wants
to cross items off the list of things to do before she
kicks the bucket. Maybe not the best reason, but it leads
her into unexpected situations like discovering MURDER
UNDER THE COVERED BRIDGE.
TV coverage of the Covered Bridge Festival at Roseville,
Parke County is barely in the can before the town's
ladies are engaged in an entertaining pursuit. They want to
re-enact a scene from the history of Charlotte's family, in
which a young woman cosied up to her carriage driver under
a bridge during bad weather. Francine and her husband
Jonathan are helping the strong senior lady Charlotte and
photographer Joy to create a photoshoot for a saucy
calendar. All in good taste of course. Gunshots break the
spell and the ducking friends see someone being chased
through the autumn cornfield towards the creek and the
bridge.
Comically the little party is just as concerned with
protecting their reputations as with saving the wounded,
unconscious man once they send for an ambulance, and
there's some talk of the consequences of their previous
mystery-solving. This has resulted in the good ladies being
nicknamed the Skinny-Dipping Grandmas. I believe I'm going
to have to read that one.
With fun festival activities and action at the gentle pace
of a lady using a cane, this is a mystery based on
characters, family history and friendship. Another of the
group, Mary Ruth, is running a catering establishment which
provides local goods to tourists and she's under pressure
with her helpers delayed. Despite her love of cooking she's
managed to lose weight by hiring a personal trainer for her
own bucket list item. The police detective investigating
the matter was previously a sheriff, and he knows everyone
for miles around and for three generations. The injured man
is unexpectedly a cousin of Francine's who owns some
nursing homes. What was he doing out in a cornfield? The
ladies get straight to investigating. Then matters turn
hostile and potentially deadly.
I was surprised by how well this was written. Elizabeth
Perona is the pen name of a father-daughter team, and their
MURDER UNDER THE COVERED BRIDGE is an up to date winner.
The Skinny-Dipping Grandmas Bare All When their Pinup Calendar Shoot Goes Terribly Wrong
Working on a television taping to promote the Parke County Covered Bridge Festival, the ladies decide to use their access to the Roseville Bridge to cross #39 off Charlotte’s bucket list: Be a Sexy Calendar Girl. But the photo shoot is interrupted by gunshots and Francine’s cousin William stumbling down the riverbank followed by a man with a gun. William sustains life-threatening injuries, but is it attempted homicide?
Francine and Charlotte go into detective mode to uncover the secret William knew about the shooter. Their success, however, depends on surviving two arson events, a séance, a shortage of Mary Ruth’s wildly popular corn fritter donuts, memory-challenged nursing home residents, and a killer who refuses to go up in flames.
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