SWING LOW, SWEET CHARIOT
by Jackie Lynn
Shady Grove, a campground on the mighty Mississippi, is the scene of yet another mystery.
Rose Franklin, a divorced ex-nurse living at Shady Grove and helping out in the office, welcomes Chariot Stevens, a nervous young woman looking for a spot to pitch a tent. Receiving a warm and sympathetic greeting from Rose, Chariot gradually discloses that she’s fled South Dakota after the murder of her boyfriend Jason. She and Jason, who’d both had a history with drugs, met the owners of Shady Grove, bikers who turned their troubled lives around and now seek to help others, at a rally. Now Chariot is seeking a safe haven. And she certainly needs one, since she’s wanted for Jason’s murder. Arrested by the local sheriff, she’s held pending extradition to South Dakota. It’s up to Rose and her friends at the campgrounds to discover who really killed Jason and what Chariot has in her possession that leads mysterious strangers to search her possessions and threaten her little girl, who’s in foster care in South Dakota. The situation becomes ever more dangerous before Rose discovers the surprising truth.
The third dispatch from Shady Grove is not quite up to Jacob’s Ladder (2007), but it will still leave like-minded readers with that warm cozy feeling.