THE ANGEL AND THE JABBERWOCKY MURDERS

Everyone’s favorite sleuthing guardian angel helps solve a series of murders in a small southern college town.

Augusta Goodnight (Too Late for Angels, 2005, etc.) is boarding with Lucy Nan Pilgrim, a widow who’s teaching a course on everyday life in the 19th century at Sarah Bedford College. When unpopular coed D.C. Hunter is found dead and a verse from Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem “Jabberwocky” is discovered, the police—recalling the verses found in connection with one student who fell from a tree house and another who drowned in a lake—realize they may have a serial killer on their hands. While they focus on the professor D.C. had taken to bed, and his wife, Lucy Nan and Augusta look for a deeper connection that would target these particular girls. After the murders continue with the death of the shy college handyman, Lucy Nan learns that back in the 1970s, a group of students called themselves the Jabberwockies. As she questions members of the group, a motive emerges. The dead girls are all kin to the Jabberwockies, who had planned a stunt that caused the death of a student seeking to join the group. Now Lucy Nan, with a little guidance from Augusta, must unmask the killer before another student dies.

A nice little mystery that trades heavily on Southern charm and recipes to put you in the mood.