Mary Alice knows how to throw a wedding, that's for
sure, and she throws a doozy for her only daughter's
special day. She and Patricia Ann decide to meet the
groom's aunt, a genealogist, for lunch the next day,
to try to get to know his family a little better. But
their lunch is cut short when she interrupts a
discussion of the hazards of rattling skeletons in
closets to go scurrying off after a local judge. The
sisters are just finishing up her abandoned cheesecake
when the police and an ambulance pull up outside the
cafe. Their elderly guest has just taken a dive from
the 10th floor of the courthouse across the street, an
apparent suicide. But given the scandals the nosy
geneologist was capable of uncovering, Mouse and
Sister are betting that some proud Southern family is
making sure their shameful secrets stay
buried....along with anyone who tries to dig them up.

These gals are a real pair. I swear I know these
ladies and I really love these stories. ( )

Patricia Ann (Mouse) and Mary Alice (Sister) meet Meg, a geneologist, at the wedding of Mary Alice's daughter. Later they meet her for lunch which is interupted by another friend of Meg's. Meg steps away to investigate some geneological mystery and ends up taking a nose dive from the 10th floor of the Birmingham courthouse. Was is suicide or did Meg have a little help?

These Southern Sisters Mysteries are so much fun. The characters are really taking shape by this installment. The mystery is almost beside the point. Just sit back and enjoy. ( )

Publishers Weekly Review: Retired Alabama schoolteacher Patricia Anne Hollowell and her sister Mary Alice (heroines of Murder on a Girls' Night Out and Murder on a Bad Hair Day) befriend genealogist Meg Ryan at the wedding of Mary Alice's daughter. Afterward, inexplicably, Meg commits suicide by jumping out of the courthouse window, an event witnessed by a judge. It's all too much for Patricia Anne and Mary Alice, and once again they are drawn into playing amateur sleuths. Along the way, the sisters find out that the sweet elderly lady was not above tampering with courthouse records, and perhaps even worse. With wonderful dialogue and descriptions of the guests, the opening wedding scene is truly entertaining, but then the plot spins out of control. The book remains a clever first half of a mystery that unfortunately doesn't hold up. (June) ( )