Murder in the Charleston Manner

In her second appearance, following Murder at Markham , Chicago-based Sheila Travis, visits her Aunt Mary in Atlanta. She is bullied into helping invalid Dolly Langdon, Mary's old friend who's worried about a series of accidents affecting her venerable Charleston family, whose members include her antique-dealer sister and two college-student granddaughters. Soon after Sheila arrives at Dolly's ancestral home in Charleston, the heirloom silver and Bible are stolen, followed by the death of Dolly's nurse, Francine Jenkins, whom many of Dolly's relatives had good reason to dislike. The brutal murder of a next-door neighbor involves the police; then Sheila is abducted; and Aunt Mary must take matters in hand before the killer is confronted. Sprinkle writes engagingly of Charleston, its mores and the proud, appealing family, but her mystery creaks in spots, with Aunt Mary adding little but unnecessary complications and a decidedly irritating personality. ( June )