WEDDING DAY MURDER: A Lucy Stone Mystery

Tinker's Cove, Maine, is the cozily evoked setting of Meier's lighthearted Lucy Stone novels, which are usually set around holidays or significant life events. Here a harried Lucy is trying to juggle children, husband and a full-time job when her best friend, Sue Finch, asks for help in planning the wedding of Sue's mother, Sidra, and Internet millionaire Ron Davitz. Lucy agrees to let the ceremony take place in her backyard gazebo. When the groom and his social-climbing mother arrive on a large yacht, tempers start flaring among the townspeople. Local fishermen are being displaced from their moorings in the harbor to make way for summer visitors in an attempt to raise much-needed revenues for the town. Davitz proves to be a singularly graceless, stereotypical computer nerd, but when he's found floating dead in the water, suspicion quickly focuses on an old flame of the bride. Lucy once more finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation, and at first she fears that Sue, or Sue's temperamental husband, might have done something drastic to get rid of a potential father-in-law he despised. In a leisurely paced investigation, Lucy perseveres through various irritations to dig up the truth. Despite the obvious pall cast by the murder of the groom, Meier manages to pull off a happy ending, replete with a charming wedding in which her fans will rejoice. (Nov. 6)