Reviewed by Jeanne
Glory Broussard is a devout, Church-going woman of a certain
age in Layfayette, Louisiana but don’t let that lull you into thinking she’s a
pushover. Glory is sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued,
and the neighborhood bookie. She can
also make grown men cry, as Gus the new barista at the coffee shop can
attest. But Miss Glory has problems of
her own: for one thing, someone has reported her house as being unfit for human
habitation just because she has a few things piled up—well, okay, a lot of things, but some of these thrift
store finds are just too good to throw away.
Also, her daughter Delphine may be a big-time lawyer in New York and
married to a rich boy, but Glory has a feeling that things may not be going so
well in that marriage. But the worst
thing is that Glory’s best friend, a nun named Amity Gay, has been found
dead. The police believe it was suicide,
but Glory doesn’t believe that for an instant. Amity might have had her faults,
but suicide is out of the question.
Glory just has to prove it.
This debut mystery was on a lot of “Best of” lists at the end
of the year, and I think it deserved to be.
Glory is a vivid character, stubborn, opinionated, and not afraid to
speak her mind. The Louisiana setting is
used to great advantage; one can almost feel the heat and humidity seeping out
of the pages. While many called this a
cozy mystery, for me it’s grittier than most cozies, with some obviously
dangerous characters. There are references
to violence (dog-fighting, for example) and characters share more than a chaste
kiss on the cheek. The sharp-edged humor
carries the day for me, and Miss Glory is not one to pull her punches when she
speaks her mind. The second book in the
series, Glory Daze, has come out already and I’m definitely going to be reading it.
And while one should not always judge a book by its cover, I
really like the covers on both books.
They just looked so inviting!
