Miss Dimple and the Slightly Bewildered Angel

Guardian angel Augusta Goodnight, the star of Ballard’s paranormal cozy series, lends celestial support to first-grade teacher Miss Dimple Kilpatrick in the author’s feel-good fifth WWII-era mystery (after 2014’s Miss Dimple Picks a Peck of Trouble). One afternoon in October 1944, Miss Dimple spots a frightened stranger, Dora Westbrook, on the porch of the Elderberry, Ga., library. When Miss Dimple learns that Dora has no place to stay, she takes the poor woman to her friend Phoebe Chadwick’s boarding house for a hot meal. Dora winds up seeking shelter at the local Presbyterian church, and the next morning the part-time sexton finds her dead body on the floor below the steeple ladder. Did she attempt to climb the ladder and take a fatal fall? With the guidance of the otherworldly Augusta, Miss Dimple searches for answers. Ballard expertly weaves the lives of her endearing small-town characters with details of the wartime home front. [em]Agent: Laura Langlie, Laura Langlie Agency. (Aug.) [/em]