Ashleigh is an accomplished, though amateur, teddy bear maker who is attending her first show nearby and entering her creation, Susannah S. Seraphim, hoping to garner some attention and perhaps a few customers. The morning before the two leave for the show, a body washes by their riverside house. The pious pastor comes with EMTs to pull it out, but Bradley is shocked when local sheriff Holcombe declares the death a suicide. It is obvious to Bradley, even from a distance, that the man was strangled.

After a not so veiled threat to stay out of local police business, Bradley and Ashleigh head to the teddy bear festival where a mourning bear, made shortly after the sinking of the Titanic, is to be auctioned off, expecting to fetch over $150,000. The bear never arrives and Bradley learns that the man who was to deliver the bear is the man who washed up on his bank that morning. Never one to shy away from a fight, and with the help of Deputy Tina who plans on opposing Holcombe in the upcoming election, Bradley begins to investigate the last few hours the dead man spent on earth.

Through his investigation Bradley encounters many local characters: the gun-wielding moonshine making woman and the daughter Ashleigh used to baby sit for, and the grand dame of the area who Ashleigh feels cheated her family out of some prime real estate many years ago.

Without flaunting what he is doing, Bradley quickly and quietly runs an investigation and manages to topple two pillars of the community and propel Tina toward winning an election.

The setting of The Mournful Teddy is described so vividly, readers are quickly transported to rural Virginia. Not too many characters are introduced in this first book of a new series, but the ones that are have potential for supporting characters to carry the new series along. Bradley and Ashleigh’s devotion to each other (often calling each other “honey” or “sweetheart” or Bradley waxing poetic how beautiful Ashleigh is) is touching at first, but loses its effect as it occurs so often. The turn around of one of the characters is so unexpected it is almost unbelievable, as is one of the later scenes with the Lyons. While there are several great elements to a complicated crime or two, and they are all connected in the end, the pieces just never seem to come together quite smoothly enough to satisfy.

There is a lot of teddy bear lore to enjoy, and while part of the plot revolves around the missing bear, it doesn’t play as big a role in the final outcome as aficionados might like. Bradley and Ashleigh are very likable characters, the setting is great and the teddy bear hook provides a great hook. This has the potential to quickly turn into a favorite series of many as the characters grow and the plots come more into focus.

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry