The Sensational Music Club Mystery

The delightful nonagenarian Harriet Bushrow and her friends in Borderville, Virginia-Tennessee, again band together (after The Rotary Club Murder Mystery) to track down a killer. When Monica Gaulton, second wife of paralyzed stroke victim Doug Gaulton, is found fatally poisoned before the annual Music Club Fashion Show, the club members, including Harriet, go on with the event and defer calling the police until afterward. Asked days later by members of her Bible class whether she'll investigate the case, Harriet at first says no but changes her mind when she learns that the police suspect that another Gaulton family member did the deed in order to gain control of the huge family fortune. Convinced that neither Doug's son nor daughter would have murdered their stepmother, Harriet and her pals, who take turns narrating the story, start to sleuth. Exhibiting informal detection at its finest, they finally locate the solution to the crime in a most unlikely spot. Readers pining for a good, old-fashioned mystery will find a splendid one here. (Dec.)