I love reading authors whose ear, when writing dialogue, is so good that you just mentally hear it with the proper
dialect or accent without any need for transliteration or other fake cues. Jimmie Ruth Evans has the knack in this
Trailer Park Mystery series, oozing with the atmosphere of small town life in the Deep South. There's also an
enjoyable mystery with realistic characters you believe in and care about.
Wanda Nell Culpepper lives in a trailer but is emphatically not "trailer park trash." She's the smart,
hardworking mother of three and the wary sister of the man who has just appeared with trouble in his wake. She and
Rusty haven't talked in years, and aren't communicating much now, but when it's clear he's in serious trouble
involving threats, maybe kidnapping, and two murders... well, family is family and Wanda Nell has to help.
Doesn't hurt that she's starting to establish a bit of a reputation as an amateur detective - she's smart and
she knows people and can get them to talk to her, even if the local law isn't happy about it. Problem is that
since Rusty's gone missing and wasn't talking to her much before that, she's investigating things practically
blind, while becoming the focus of some of the trouble her brother stirred up. Meanwhile, somewhere in the middle
of all this she's also got to deal with her unreliable daughter (who is also an unwed mother), her ex-mother-in-law
from hell, her recently out-of-the-closet son, and the English professor who looks mighty good in a pair of jeans
and boots and thinks she's pretty special too. Who says small town life is slow?
This third book in the series is a bit more ambitious than the previous books, but it is just as much fun to
read. It even has a cameo appearance from one of the author's earlier mysteries, written under his real name.
Highly atmospheric, with a bit of humor, excellent characterization, smooth writing, real detection, and an
interesting puzzle at its core - what more could a mystery fan want? Recommended.