ANGEL AT TROUBLESOME CREEK

Yet another southern heroine for the author (Minerva Cries Murder, 1993, etc.). This time, it’s Mary George Murphy—orphaned at age five in Charlotte, North Carolina; placed in Summerwood Acres, where her best friend was a little boy named Sam; and adopted three years later by Caroline and Henry from Troublesome Creek and lovingly raised by them. Now Mary George is 26, living and working in Charlotte and in close touch with her widowed “Aunt” Caroline when Caroline takes a fatal spill down her attic steps. Mary George arrives in Troublesome Creek for the funeral to find an amiable ghost named Augusta Goodnight in residence and various signs that convince her Caroline’s fall was no accident. As Mary George recovers a well-remembered cookie jar from the attic and wonders what became of a vanished Bible, she must put the house on the market; hold a garage sale, and move into an apartment in a nearby house owned by Fronie Temple, whose other tenant is handsome Kent Coffey. She finds Sam as sweet as ever, and gets a job with a veterinarian. Unfortunately. Mary George’s ex-boyfriend has become a frightening pest; her apartment is ransacked; and the garage at Aunt Caroline’s house is burned down. The eventual appearance of’ the long-sought Bible provides a farfetched motive for all the mayhem but leaves lots of unanswered questions. Frantically busy but hardly Ballard’s best.