05-21-2026, 08:58 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-24-2026, 09:43 PM by The Queen.
Edit Reason: Bad paragraphing
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#29: Marsh Mystics by Jana DeLeon. This is the latest in the “Miss Fortune” cozy mystery series (the violence and sex occur “off the page”). Fortune Redding, (a former CIA assassin who relocated to Sinful, Louisiana to start a new life as a private detective), and her two senior citizen friends, Ida Belle and Gertie (who served in the military in Vietnam) investigate the unsavory financial circumstances surrounding a suspicious suicide at a spa. I find Fortune to be an interesting character because of her very flexible moral boundaries. She thinks it would be wrong to fail to help an ailing neighbor clean a house, and is the first to volunteer to redistribute an overabundance of donated food less fortunate, but is happy to lie to her fiancee (the local police chief) about where she’s been or what she’s done whenever she knows she’s bent or broken a law he might have to enforce. (And I’m not sure why he’s content with being lied to, but that’s a choice the author the made.) In this story, the victim (of course it wasn’t really suicide) is a fairly nasty woman who victimized several relatives, and Fortune has no problem helping the killer get away with the murder.
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.