Old Fashioned Murder by Carol Miller & Y'all

Reviewed by Jeanne

An Old Fashioned Murder by Carol Miller is the third in the “Moonshine Mystery” series.  Set in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the series centers on Daisy McGovern, a local girl who runs a bakery in town and lives with her invalid mother at an inn run by Aunt Emily, an elderly woman with firm views, a shotgun and a taste for good spirits (of the alcoholic sort, that is).  She’s being wooed—more or less—by the ever charming Rick Balsam who makes moonshine and has his fingers in any number of pies, some legal but most not.  The catch is that Daisy is still married, though her husband Matt took off about five years ago and hasn’t been heard from since.

Daisy, ever loyal, has had parts of her life on hold, waiting for Matt to come back.  Now, however, she is starting to lean toward the idea that he won’t, so she has begun dating Drew Alcott, a bat conservationist she met in the previous book. She’s looking forward to the upcoming weekend, as Aunt Emily has decided to have a weekend party for a group of friends—including Drew. The weekend starts to sour after one couple can’t make it, and Lillian and Parker Barker turn up instead. Lillian is Matt’s aunt and she takes a very dim view of Daisy doing anything other than sitting around waiting for Matt. Then an unusually severe winter storm moves in, blocking roads and cutting off electricity.  Just when it seems things can’t get worse, one of the guests is crushed when a bookcase falls over on him.  It appears to be just an unfortunate accident, but Daisy soon has reason to suspect otherwise.

I tend to be a bit nervous when I start a book set in Appalachia with a reference to “moonshine.” All too often this means that the characters are going to speak in a nearly unreadable dialect, visit outhouses, eschew shoes, and have far less than the usual number of teeth and/or fingers. However, I’m happy to report that while Carol Miller’s Appalachian Americans may use a certain number of country phrases, they do speak more or less Standard English.  In fact, I felt quite at home among this group, many of whom reminded me of someone I knew. The characters were treated as individuals, not stereotypes, and I found myself enjoying this one as much as I had the others.  There were a couple of times that I questioned some motives or actions, but most of the time I just enjoyed the characters and the setting.  For me, the book did a good job of capturing the flavor without being condescending.  Miller respects her characters. 

I also appreciated that the book becomes one of those classic “British country house mysteries” in that the murder has to have been committed by one of a small group of people in the house, and that the murderer has to still be there.  As I said earlier, there were a couple of explanations that I didn’t quite buy but the rest of the book was good enough that I’m willing to let that pass.  I like these people:   Aunt Emily, a strong woman with a tender side and enough foibles to make her human, and who names the rooms in her inn after Civil War generals; Daisy’s mother, Lucy, who remains a sweet, strong spirit despite her physical infirmities; Rick Balsam, the shrewd moonshiner who may or may not have ulterior motives; Henry Brent, the elderly local historian who takes great pride in both his knowledge and his dapper appearance; and, of course, Daisy, the waitress turned small business owner who is trying to take charge of her own life.  Other characters were much less likable but still memorable, especially Lillian, who never misses a chance to take a dig at Daisy—or anyone else, for that matter. 

I’m more than ready and willing to pull up a chair in the parlor and spend more time with these folks. This entry in the series can be read as a standalone but if you’re like me and like to read in order, start with Murder and Moonshine, followed by  A Nip of Murder.

Then there’s One Foot in the Grove by Kelly Lane.  The book has an intriguing premise: an infamous “runaway bride” comes back to the family farm in Georgia to help her father with his olive orchard. Eva seemed likeable enough despite her unfortunate habit of running out on grooms and I thought the olive angle might be intriguing.  I’ve read numerous glowing reviews about this first in series book, but I gave up after about 40 pages for what some might consider a very silly reason.

It’s all due to “y’all.”

In my experience, the word(s) “you all” or “y’all” is the plural of “you.”  When I ask one person "How are y’all doing?”, I am inquiring about the person and his or her family and I expect to hear reports on more than one person.  If I said, “How are YOU doing?” I am asking about that person and no one else. I checked with colleagues and they agree.  In Ms. Lane’s book, however, she uses “y’all” in place of “you.”  As in, “Y’all put on this [one] pair of pants.” Unless the pants are big enough to fit two people or more, this sentence makes no sense to me.  It happened again and again, which is why I gave up. Yes, it’s ridiculous, but every time it happened, I’d spend a moment or two re-reading the sentence to try to figure out  who else was being spoken to and it took me right out of the story. The blurb says the author lives in Charlottesville, VA but I would bet money she is not a native Southerner.

However, if someone wants to cook some of the luscious sounding recipes in the back of the book, I wouldn’t say no to a taste.  

A Nip of Murder by Carol Miller

Reviewed by Jeanne

“Aunt Emily was always generous with her advice and opinions.  Taken on the whole, a bit too generous, and more often than not, it wasn’t so clear whether that advice tended to be brilliant or batty.”

Things seem to be looking up for Daisy McGovern.  She’s turned the old diner where she used to work as a waitress into her own bakery, Sweetie Pies, and the place is doing fairly well – until the robbery and murder, that is.  The murder was an accident, though, caused when one of the masked men kicked Brenda’s cat Blot and ended up stabbed with Brenda’s chef’s knife. The other two made off with the goods:  90 pounds of cream cheese.

As if that weren’t odd enough, Bobby Balsam has managed to get engaged to an intelligent and sophisticated young woman who is running a geocaching tournament, though what she could possible see in backward Bobby is a mystery for the ages.  Or maybe she just knows that Bobby’s brother Rick has a moonshine empire and she thinks that’s a way to some of the cash—or maybe even to Rick himself.

Since the sheriff is out of town and his clueless replacement is just that, Daisy decides she needs to find out what’s going on before she ends up out of business.  The trail takes her to a nip joint (as in illegal drinking establishment), caves, the historical society, and down more than a few backroads as she tries to figure out who would want to steal all that cream cheese—and why.

I had read the first book in the series, Murder and Moonshine, a few months back and been pleasantly surprised to find that Miller did a good job of portraying the Southwestern Virginia region and its people without being condescending.  While there are some stereotypical aspects, the characters are more nuanced than most such portrayals.  Daisy is feisty and smart, a young woman out to make her own way in the world while keeping her ties to family and friends.  The love-hate relationship between Daisy and Rick is well done, as Daisy tries to fight her attraction to a man who represents most of the things she despises. While this tends to be a standard plot point these days, Miller makes it believable. Rick himself is an especially intriguing character.  He’s definitely involved in illegal practices, he’s a womanizer, and can be sexist and yet he can be unexpectedly considerate.  He’s obviously very interested in Daisy even if she doesn’t return his affections—at least not that she will admit, even to herself.

The mysteries are good ones, and the resolution is satisfying, though it hints at more upheavals in Daisy’s life.  In short, I found this to be a very entertaining and enjoyable tale.   I’ll be looking forward to the next in the series, An Old Fashioned Murder, which is “coming soon.” Miller’s website is www.carolmillerauthor.com.