Review: Third in a well written series of Christian Mysteries
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 10, 2012
I would judge this book to be about a three star rating for the average reader . Fans will probably find it in keeping with the quality of the series to this date and give it a four or five.The story is set in what is essentially an off-off Broadway stage set: three adjacent houses on a street. The cast of characters include two outsiders and a group of friends, mostly neighbors and one financee.  There is only one important scene outside this limited range of sets and  people.From the two earlier books, we know that most of the action takes place in the heroine's mind: we hear her pleas to God (this is labelled a 'Christian' novel) and deliberations upon events in process and anticipated. Mainly, this internal dialogue focuses on her unworthiness, her friends potential threats to her, and the potential threats, posed by the few outsiders, to herself and/or the mansion she has inherited (which gives the series its title). Her God is unceasingly implored to provide satisfactory answers to all her problems and expected to pay attention to her most trivial needs. One does get bored with the monologue since it reflects constant suspicion of almost everyone, including her friends,  the usual overweening snoopiness of heroines in cozy mysteries, and a constant replay of the mind set of Red Skelton's 'Mean Widdle Kid' (that is, when faced by the temptation to do something she thinks may be very dangerous for her, she consistently yields to the temptation regardless of the danger involved and the ease of getting advice or aid from others. This behavior is extremely perplexing to the average person, since it recurs so frequently; one only accepts it through understanding, from reading other 'cozies',  that there would be no  book without this character trait. The denouement carries this quirk to an extreme; one can't say why the author found it necessary for her heroine to go so far beyond common sense as to be almost certifiable.The essential story has to do with the house she has inherited from her Grandmother. We already know from the first two volumes in the series, that it was the home of a notorious group of woman who sold whiskey during Prohibition and who left behind a jewel that the heroine has sold for a sum, which, when added to the $300,000 dollars in cash her Grandmother left hidden for her in the house (without telling her about it,of course), has made her wealthy. The book begins with a fire in the house she now owns; it is being renovated using her new found wealth.  Who set the house  on fire? Who left her a threatening note? Who is coming into her house when she is not there? Most of the action is related to the Romantic elements of the plot: her forthcoming marriage to a wonderful man she thinks is too good for her, her best friend's boy friends, and how to get her married to one of them, another friend's new boyfriend,  whether she, herself, will finally be married, and, overall, how she can  become more worthy of the man she is to marry, and how she can lead anyone who comes along, who is not yet on the righteous path, onto it.The author writes well; the actions are consistent to the pattern of this and previous plots. She expects us to accept the conventions inherent in a Christian Romantic Mystery and those who can, will certainly find this an enjoyable reading experience.