Cruel As the Grave (Sheriff Bramlett Mystery)

Rating:
Summary: A traditional murder
Review: This is a cozy in the best Christie tradition: a murder in the family, many suspects, the reading of the will, even a butler . . . but what a butler! As is to be expected, there are skeletons-lots of them, and in a Southern mansion on the scale of Tara there are plenty of closets to house them. Maggie McLendon knows little about her widowed father's family, since Gerard McLendon has always been strangely reluctant to ever talk about them. Then, a letter arrives from Gerard's aunt informing him that his father's death is fast approaching. In spite of his protests, Maggie accompanies him to the magnificent family home. There, she meets a host of relatives, along with her grandfather, who is in fact on his deathbed. That very evening someone hastens him along. In the days that follow, Maggie discovers why her father was estranged from his family, and she then untangles the skeins of the McLendon past to finally reveal the murderer. The author could have done the reader a favor by providing a genealogy somewhere at the beginning to help with the bewildering cast of characters and their equally bewildering kinship, but once one has overcome that hurdle, CRUEL AS THE GRAVE emerges as a very readable, traditional mystery novel.