Shakespeare's Trollop (Lily Bard Mysteries) (original 2000; edition 2004)

I'm recommending the whole of the Lily Bard series to anyone who likes books with strong female characters. Lily has her problems, but she doesn't let them keep her from getting on with the job of solving crimes that come her way. ( )

An ok mystery. Not sure why Lily Bard was so involved--she didn't like the woman who was killed so her intense involvement just didn't make a lot of sense. Also, the emotional stuff with this character is just awkward. ( )

I know, you're thinking it's just another cleaning lady who solves mysteries on the side...

Don't know how involved the rest of the stories get into the background of the heroine, but there's just barely enough explanation to make the character believable. She may be even too believable for comfort, as events in her past make romance difficult, which in turn makes the romantic scenes a bit flat. In general, actually, Lily Bard is a bit lacking in color. Detectives don't have to be colorful. Kinsey Millhone and Matthew Scudder, for example, get on with their jobs without much fuss, but Lily Bard is so tightly in a shell that she's hard to relate to.

That said, the other characters are drawn out nicely, the town of Shakespeare is colorful and interesting, and the obligatory violent confrontation at the end had enough surprises to keep me guessing. So it has its good points and bad points. Worth spending some time on. ( )

In this warm and cozy mystery series Shakespeare is the name of a town in Arkansas, not a playwright. Lily Bard, a young woman who works as a house cleaner has evidently come to this small town to escape reminders of a very violent incident in her past. This is the fourth of six in the series, and I didn't feel I absolutely had to have read the previous entries to enjoy this one. I am however, going to be sure to look them up. The past sounds every bit as interesting as the present.

In this one, Lily discovers a dead body: one of her clients who had a reputation for being a bit loose with her morals. One of the trollop's latest and most consistent clients (whom Lily can identify as having been in and out of the victim's apartment) happens to be the local sheriff's brother. While the sheriff, with Lily's reluctant cooperation, is trying to solve the murder, Lily is also trying to resolve her feelings about her current boyfriend Jack Leeds, a private investigator who seems to be more absent than present in her life. In the meantime, she continues with her eccentric cast of clients and her personal fitness routine at the gym/karate venue. The murder is eventually solved with the perpetrator probably being a surprise to most readers.

As with other series by Charlaine Harris, humor abounds, the southern setting is charming but not cloying, and readers can settle down to enjoy a good mystery with likable characters and an interesting setting. Definitely worth checking out. ( )

In the fourth book of the Lily Bard series, another murder has taken place in Shakespeare, Arkansas. Lily moved to the sleepy town of Shakespeare to escape the spotlight after her brutal rape in Memphis four years earlier. But Shakespeare turns out not to be so sleepy, after all.

Lily finds the body of Deedra, a local “trollop” for whom she used to clean, and is pressured by the police to try to help find the killer. Since it looks like a crime of sexual passion, the suspects are legion, and Lily knows who many of the men are who have come to Deedra’s apartment.

Simultaneously, Lily is trying to define her feelings about her boyfriend Jack Leeds, and whether they should be entering into a more permanent relationship.

Lily finally stumbles upon the killer, and it is a big surprise, no less to Lily than to the reader, albeit a bit safer for the latter.

Evaluation: Harris continues to inject her trademark humor into even her darker series, combining insights into the human psyche with gentle fun:

"Clinton Emanuel looked down at me with those fathomless black eyes. I thought he was deciding whether or not to trust me. I may have been wrong; he may have been wondering if he’d have a hamburger or chicken nuggets when he went through the drive-through at Burger Tycoon.”

I’ve never met a Harris book I didn’t find entertaining. They’re not books you think about forever, but they are nevertheless a very fun way to spend the time. ( )