At the same time, Sharyn receives a call from the dead woman, Darva Richmond’s elderly aunt, insisting that Sharyn investigate the mauling as a murder. Nick’s report that Darva’s clothes were covered with honey convinces Sharyn that she must look at this death more closely.

Sharyn begins the investigation with Darva’s husband Donald, who is curiously the brother of the last murder Sharyn solved. Donald has recently returned home to North Carolina to contest his brother’s will, leaving Sharyn with no shortage of suspects. As she begins to zero in on her choice of suspects, however things begin to take some strange twists that make Sharyn wonder if there isn’t something very big going on.

While Until Our Last Embrace is a very atmospheric slice of small-town Southern life, the characters seem to be more caricatures than real. Even Sharyn appears scatter brained (she continuously forgets to call the plumber for her mother) and is very wishy-washy and dense with regard to Nick’s romantic overtures. Her deputies have, for the most part, gone over the edge with their love lives; the most disturbing is her deputy who is involved with a member of the Richmond family. A smarmy DA with evil intentions is never completely explained and ends up mostly in the way. Bear tracker Sam appears to be an interesting character, but he is not used to his full advantage.

While the mystery provides a neat twist at the end, readers may wonder how they got there so quickly. Darva’s aunt insists on seeing Sharyn, yet when she does, she offers no insight as to the motives of the crime (and she claims she has some.) Sharyn’s overwhelming allergy to roses is an obvious clue to solving the mystery but is more contrived than helpful.

An odd event at the end of the book seems out of place, unless it is foreshadowing Sharyn Howard and the Diamond Springs Sheriff Department’s next outing. A date with Nick also hints at the possibility of a relationship for Diamond Springs’s first female sheriff.

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry