The Body in the Attic

This, the 14th entry in the Faith Fairchild cozy series, reintroduces Richard Morgan, the one-time wealthy, one-time boyfriend of Faith Fairchild from before Faith married and still lived the fashionable life in New York City. (Richard first appeared in the forgettable tenth novel in the series, The Body in the Big Apple.) But then Faith encounters Richard in a Boston soup kitchen — not as a volunteer, but as a client! What’s happened in the past 13 years?

At the same time, Faith finds a diary in the attic of her rental house, where she, her husband and two children are living for a semester while Reverend Tom Fairchild is teaching at Harvard Divinity School on sabbatical. In the 1946 diary, a new bride is being held hostage in the show more attic by her sadistic husband. (So, yes, the title is a misnomer; Faith doesn’t find a body in the attic, just evidence of somebody being held against her will.) So Faith is snooping in two different cases.

The Body in the Attic is amongst the best in the series: a real page-turner I couldn’t go down. It may be cliché, but in this case it was five stars’ worth of truth. show less

I enjoyed this, although it's not really much of a mystery. But I like that the characters are flawed, and not in an attempt to be funny, rather just to make them seem more human, I guess. Of course there were some very cheesy lines. One of the final paragraphs reads:
"He stood up and Faith walked straight into his arms. They held each other the way soldiers home from battle hold their loved ones.
They were both crying."

Don't you want to gag? Thankfully there were not too many of those!

Synopsis: Tom has a crisis not of faith, but of purpose. He isn't sure that he wants to remain in Aleford, taking on all the responsibilities that are associated with a single pastor church. He and Faith go to Cambridge, Tom to teach and work with the homeless and Faith to try to find something to do, including move into a dark, foreboding house. Faith, while serving food to the homeless, meets an old boyfriend and agrees to meet him. She also finds the diary of an abused wife and begins to search for information about this woman who lived in the house just after World War II. In an interesting twist, Faith is threatened by someone associated with the long forgotten abused woman.
Review: Disjointed and very much like an extended whine show more from Faith, this is not one of the author's best efforts. Answers to questions simply appear rather than having any association with the action. The ending was, however, unexpected and satisfying. show less

Tom, Faith & children were in Cambridge and she found a diary.