Grime and Punishment (1989)

Jane Jeffrey is struggling to rebuild her life and make her children's life as normal as possible after the death of her husband in a car accident seven months earlier. She feels that life is starting to get back to normal, but that normalcy is shattered when a cleaning woman is murdered at the house next door which belongs to her friend Shelley Nowack. Shelly and Jane are understandably upset about the murder and worry about the safety of their children, so even though the police are looking into the murder they begin a little investigating on their own. They have plenty of suspects - there was going to be a gathering at Shelley's house and people were in and out of the house dropping off food all day long. In fact, Jane even wonders if Shelley could be the killer. As Jane investigates, she realizes that several people had secrets they wanted to stay secret, secrets they could be blackmailed for and might even kill to keep secret. When Jane gets a little too close to the truth and a threatening note is left on her bed, she knows she has to solve the case quickly before she or someone in her family is hurt.

"Grime and Punishment" is the delightful first book in Jill Churchill's Jane Jeffrey cozy mystery series. Jane is a well-written character - a single mother struggling not only to raise three young children, but also trying to accept the circumstances behind her husband's death. Her children - Mike, Katie, and Todd - are also well written and some of the best parts of the book are the scenes with Jane and her children going about their every day life. I especially liked the fact that Jane volunteered to drive blind children, it added a nice dimension to her character. Jane's method of investigating the murder was a bit unorthodox, my jaw dropped when she came right out and asked a suspect why she was being blackmailed, but she quickly won my sympathy when her abruptness backfired on her and she learned something that hurt her. Shelley is also well written - attractive, a bit too perfect and bossy, living in a house that is immaculate before the cleaning lady even gets there, and a penchant for driving too fast. Of the supporting characters, my favorite is Jane's "Uncle" Jim, a policeman who is a surrogate father to Jane and will do anything he can to protect her. The mystery is well plotted and the number of people that had access to Shelley's house means that the readers will have fun trying to pick the killer from the long list of suspects and at the end of the book, readers will want to go back through it to see all the clues Churchill cleverly planted throughout. The method Churchill uses to reveal the killer is a bit unbelievable but still a lot of fun.

"Grime and Punishment" is a nice, fun cozy mystery. ( )

I really enjoy the Jane Jeffry novels by Jill Churchill. I haven't been able to read them in order. This is the first in the series and it was really nice to be able to see how some of the themes that are in every subsequent novel came to be. All of the books in this series are nice, easy, cozy mysteries but this one was a bit weaker than the rest. As a first novel, it was to be expected, but reading some of Churchill's later works first really made it all the more obvious. It couldn't stand up against her newer novels. ( )

This is the beginning of the Jane Jeffrey series. Jane is a widow whose husband died a few months ago in an auto accident. While she tries to keep things on an even keel for her three children, Jane handles carpools, PTA meetings but has to replace her cleaning lady. She and her next door neighbor, Shelly, contact the Happy Helper, and hire Edith, who is highly recommended by other neighbors.
Edith calls in sick when she is due at Shelly's house on a day that Shelly is hosting a meeting, so a replacement is sent. When she comes home from doing her errands, Shelly frantically calls Jane over to her house because she has found Edith's replacement strangled with a vacuum cleaner cord.
Jane and Shelly work to figure out why the maid was dispatched.
It was entertaining, wouldn't say that it was the greatest. ( )

http://hollybooknotes.blogspot.com/2008/03/more-mysteries.html ( )

Very nice cozy mystery. I really liked the main character(s) and the mystery itself held up nicely. Looking forward to reading more books in this series. ( )