Murder & Sullivan

In the small town of Oliver, Indiana, a well-liked judge is murdered onstage during a local performance of Gilbert & Sullivan's operetta Ruddigore. The director of the Senior Citizens Center, Joan Spencer, is playing the viola in the orchestra when it happens, and her ties with the judge's family--and with nearly everyone else in Oliver--draw her into the investigation. This third mystery in the series is a neatly plotted cozy filled with deft touches: Joan's affectionate relationship with her college-age son; what to do in Indiana during a tornado; the surreal dream of knowing, even in sleep, that you have to pee. Joan's relationship with local police officer Fred Lundquist is traced in the tentative dance of older lovers, as the debris of their past (she's a widow; he's divorced) swirls about them.