Retro Reading: Murder Buys a T-shirt by Christy Fifield
If there's one thing I can say truthfully, I hate Florida (and I hope to never have to go there again) but in the first installment of Christy Fifield's Haunted Souvenir Shop Mysteries, I might go back. Well, to the panhandle region that is.
Glory Martine has inherited her great-uncle Louis' souvenir shop (she owns 55 percent and her cousin Peter owns 45 percent) and loves what she's doing. Except having to deal with her cousin Peter.
The tourist season is over and one day she's talked into leaving the store by her best friend news reporter Karen Freed. They do a little shopping for the store and on their way back, they hear on the police scanner news of a bad accident. Karen turns the SUV around and at the scene discover its the local football hero, Kevin Stanley, who's been in the fatal wreck.
When Glory gets back to the shop, she finds it a mess and blames it on uncle Louis' parrot, Bluebeard. The parrot yells out cryptic messages to her and she can't figure out what the bird is trying to say. He's known to curse a lot, but this time his snippets aren't making any sense.
As the story progresses, Bluebeard becomes more aggressive in his "clues" and Glory figures out that it's Louis who is trying to communicate to her. She thinks she's going insane and after talking it over with Karen, they agree Louis is talking to her. Bluebeard makes it known that the accident was no accident, but an act of murder.
The suspect list in the small town of Keyhole Bay grows and Glory starts to look at the residents in a different light.
Fifield has created some really great characters in this series and with Karen, she makes it plausible when getting "confidential" information since she would have access to many avenues. The small town setting and souvenir shop really bring back memories of vacations long ago. I think my mind was wandering more in the past than in the future on this one. I'm pretty sure you'll find yourself thinking back to the past.
One thing the characters do is get together every Thursday night for dinner and they've decided to cook down home meals. At the end of the book, you'll find quite a few recipes to try.
