town scoundrel poisoned by cyanide in chicken pot pie, detected by Prof. Shandy on search for wondrous lupines

The Peter Shandy mysteries were my favorite of Ms. MacLeod's series, both those under her own name and those she wrote as "Alisa Craig," so I was glad when Something in the Water came out. It's not my favorite Shandy. That's probably because it's not set in Balaclava, so it's missing the usual supporting cast, but it's still good. Peter is back in Maine, checking out some gorgeous lupines that grow where lupines shouldn't have any reason to thrive.

The lupines are owned by Miss Frances Hodgson Rondel, an elderly woman who's mighty spry for someone who went to school with the grandmother of a woman who has teenaged grandchildren of her own. That second woman is Elva Bright, owner of the Bright's Inn where Peter is staying. Mrs. Bright is a fine cook. Her granddaughter Thurzella is waiting tables in the inn when customer Jasper Flodge keels over dead in the middle of his meal.

As Peter and we readers learn, Jasper Flodge was not a good citizen. Even his widow is happy he's dead. If he's been murdered, there's no lack of people with good motives. Too bad there was such a narrow window of opportunity. Helen Shandy gets to be on the scene starting in chapter 12. She has some nice phone conversations with Peter earlier, though.

Before this book is over, two of Flodge's victims will learn the truth, an excellent artist will be discovered, and some nasty people will get their comeuppance. (I couldn't help laughing at the self-image of one of them.)

Mark Hess is the artist for the cover with the skull made of lupines that has two pools of water for eye sockets. The background has water, rocks, and paths. The artist's last name is written on the ground in front of the house seen to the right, under the title.

For my fellow Shandy fans who love character tidbits and share my difficulty remembering in which book those tidbits appear:

Ch.4: Thorkjeld Svenson and the Balaclava Blacks won again at the Balaclava County Annual Workhorse Competition a few weeks before this novel opens.

The Helen's Fancy petunia that Peter had not quite perfected in chapter two of Wrack and Rune is bringing substantial royalties.

Ch.5: One of Helen's old friends is named Audrey, Audrey has a cat named Maud Silver, which is the name of the governess-turned-detective in late Patricia Wentworth's long-running mystery series. Audrey also has a husband whose great-uncle Otis and Great-Aunt Margaret went camping at Glacier Park with Mary Roberts Rinehart, a real-life author who excelled at the 'Had I But Known' style of mysteries. Ms. MacLeod mentions the unusual souvenir of that camping trip that now belongs to Audrey's husband and the effect said souvenir has on Audrey's cat.

Ch.6 is where one of the female characters reminds Peter of a P.G. Wodehouse character.

Ch.7: By the time Peter Shandy graduated from agricultural college, he was convinced that roomie Guthrie Fingal had some Ent blood in him.

Ch.8: There's some description of Catriona McBogle's relationship with her handyman, her life as a mystery writer, and the difference between the way she lives from way Guthrie lives.

This is where Peter enters a used bookstore and what he found there.

Peter always carries a bandana handkerchief -- except for two kinds of social functions where Helen makes sure he has a white one.

Ch.11 : Peter and friends used to sit in the peanut gallery at the old movie house and groan over mushy endings to movies. (Ms. MacLeod didn't state how old Peter was at the time.)

Algernon leaves rabbit droppings on the Enderbles' living-room rug.

Mrs. Lomax's late husband's cousin's niece is studying veterinary medicine and will take care of the rabbit droppings.

Ch. 12:

Cat McBogle's Maine Coon cats, Carlyle and Emerson, get burs in their tails and 'trousers' during autumns. The description of how Cat removes them does not sound like fun.

Helen did write a book on Praxiteles Lumpkin's weather vanes and got paid for it. See Vane Pursuit.

Dan and Iduna Stott paid $1,000 dollars for their oil painting of Balaclava's Belinda and her 19 piglets.

Catriona McBogle gave a copy of both of Helen's books to Miss Rondel.

Ch.20: Peter's "niece," Alice, has six Chihuahuas.

Thank God for the Internet, which makes it so easy to look up things that get mentioned in books! I, for one, got plenty of laughs from reading Mark Twain's 'The Awful German Language.' That one of the character's sentences are compared to those in Twain's complaint makes me feel even more sorry for Peter whenever he has to listen to that person. ( )