Recently widowed Trudy Roundtree has returned to Ogeechee to start a new life. She is a cousin of Henry Huckabee, the Chief of Police, and her family successfully forces him to hire her. As the only female in the department, she is relegated to the most mundane of chores.

One spring night, Reed Ritter is found dead in his home after a fire. When the medical examiner's office in Atlanta informs the police that Reed was murdered prior to the fire, it becomes a police investigation. When the news breaks, the Chief and the rest of the department 'good ole boys' are on a DEA stakeout in the swamp.

So Trudy starts investigating on her own, knowing she will have to relinquish her role when they return. But fate strikes the 'boys' in the guise of a toxic reaction to a plant and they end up in the hospital.

Reed is the former husband of vicious Vivi Dawson, the daughter of the town's wealthiest man. Therefore Trudy starts her quest with the Dawsons and threads her way through their extended family in the search for motive and opportunity.

There is a gentleness in this well constructed mystery that is rarely found in police detective novels. Throughout this book, Berry utilizes imagery laced with humor to enrich the definition of the town's characters. Trudy works her way through the clues she uncovers to the logical resolution of the crime, and the reader is left with the feeling that the complicated has indeed been made simple.

For graduates of a small town childhood this is a trip down memory lane. For those of you who were not so privileged, it is also a comprehensive and accurate view of a slowly vanishing way of life.

--Thea Davis