Wish You Were Here

Rita Mae Brown
& Sneaky Pie Brown

In Crozet, Virginia, the local post office is the gossip hub. Mary "Harry" Haristeen is the postmistress. She distributes all the mail daily, reading the postcards as she delivers mail to the boxes. Harry is in the midst of an acrimonious divorce from her husband, Fair. Most of Crozet is siding with one person or the other in the break up.

The local gossip is focused on the wedding of the town's richest daughter. Her mother, Big Mim, doesn't want her to invite her brother. Little Mim wants to, but has always done what she is told. The current Crozet scandal is that Stafford isn't invited to his sister's wedding.

Then the local wealthy building contractor, Kelly Craycoft, is found dead, mashed inside a mixing truck. Now everyone wants to know why he is dead and what is his wife Boom-Boom going to do? Is she responsible. She'll be a very rich widow. Or was it Fair Haristeen, Harry's separated husband? He and Kelly didn't get along. Or is there some other Crozet citizen who didn't like Kelly? Then Maude Modena, a packing and shipping store owner, is found dead. She was run over by a train. Was she put on the tracks first?

Harry is nosy. She looks for clues and ideas to present to Rick Shaw, the sheriff, and his deputies. Then she becomes of target of the killer. Can they find the murderer before the murder gets to Harry? Can her animals, Mrs. Murphy the cat, and Tucker, the Corgi dog, help keep her safe and solve the mystery?

Wish You Were Here is the first book in the Mrs. Murphy series. Rita Mae Brown's novels in this series are co-written by her cat, Sneaky Pie Brown, so the book is written following not only the humans, but the animals - who can talk to each other but not to humans.

The mystery twists nicely, but I was quickly able to figure "who done it" because I have read following books in the series. I could immediately eliminate recurring characters. If Wish You Were Here had been the first one I'd read, it might have taken me longer.

But I found Wish You Were Here a bit rough. The characters are fairly flat and almost caricatures. As the series progresses they become more rounded and mellow. The animals' conversations can be confusing to the new reader. Overall, this book is average, but does serve to introduce the odd fellows who live in Albemarle County.

Notice:  Strong language

Wish You Were Here
Rest in Pieces
Murder at Monticello
Pay Dirt
Murder, She Meowed
Murder on the Prowl
Cat on the Scent
Pawing Through the Past
Claws and Effect
Catch as Cat Can
The Tail of the Tip-Off
Whisker of Evil
Cat's Eyewitness
Sour Puss
Puss 'n Cahoots
The Purrfect Murder
Santa Clawed
Cat of the Century
Hiss of Death