DEATH IN A GHOSTLY HUE by Susan Van Kirk

 

I’ll start with my bias warning. Susan Van Kirk was our next-door neighbor. My wife is one of her beta readers. While teaching English at our local high school, Sue taught both of our children and my wife taught her kids in elementary school. Sue was and remains one of my wife’s best friends. This also means there are identifiable local references throughout the book that can only be enjoyed by a real resident of the fictional town used as a setting. These are meaningless to a general reader, but they are sure delightful for us.  

“So, say it ain’t so Sue!”  Not the final Art Center Mystery! Just because Jill banished the ghost, there are plenty of other loose ends to tie up. The love affair with Sam is just getting going, the personality change in Ivan Truelove needs explaining, Louise’s dating habits could bring on catastrophe at any moment, and Jill’s family cannot stay out of trouble for more than twenty minutes. All those valuable paintings from the judge might be a target for thieves and surely the Babbling Brook Community Church must be ripe for another foray. I admit finding another body in the basement of the art center might be pushing it, but what might Jill do with a body found frozen inside the big freezer plant next to the slaughterhouse?  Just a thought.

Back to business. Death in a Ghostly Hue, is Sue’s third art center mystery and I really do hope not the last.  All of the first three are set in a small midwestern town and take place in and around its Art Center. Jill Madison, the main character, runs the enterprise and the ins and outs of mounting exhibitions and the problems of working with a board of directors are given full shrift. The center itself has been endowed by Jill’s mother, who was a talented and successful painter.

The beginning of the book seemed a bit too obvious as a conflict set-up for me. We learn of a man named Quinn Parsons, who killed Jill Madison’s parents eight years ago in a drunk driving incident and has now suddenly returned to town to make amends publicly. From there the plot moves on so quickly that before I could worry about my initial doubts, the killer is himself killed.

Madison’s brother becomes the prime suspect and the novel now really begins. Jill and her quirky friend Angie (all good detectives need a second fiddle) now concentrate on what might explain the behavior of Mr. Parsons and what might be the hidden motive of a new murderer. Undergirding this is an exploration of the nature of forgiveness in the form of the presence of a Civil War ghost meandering about in the art center rafters. Only Jill can see and hear him and he turns out to be the most interesting character in the book as he provides the key to understanding his own 19^th century demise, the killing of Jill’s parents, and the difficulty of forgiveness for an act that continues to haunt long after it has been committed.   

Van Kirk’s work is definitely becoming more sophisticated with each succeeding book she publishes. She shows better and more deft plotting, more interesting characters, and now a definite sense of playful humor. This is a fun read. It goes quickly and we get just enough serious thought about a significant moral issue to give the book more depth than the average cozy mystery.     

Within its genre this offering gets a solid 5 out of 5.