MUCH ADO IN MAGGODY

by Joan Hess ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 23, 1989

The loony inhabitants of Maggody, Arkansas, are at it again, giving grief to police chief Arly Hanks. back in her hometown after a Manhattan sojourn and a painful divorce (Murder in Maggody). Events this time are centered on the tiny local branch of the National Farberville bank, where smarmy Brandon Bernswallow, son of Farberville's president, has been made head teller, demoting Johanna Mae Nookim--who shares duties with elderly Miss Una Corners under the lax eye of golf-freak/manager Sherman Oliver. Johanna Mac's efforts to regain her old job and salary are backed by lawyer Carolyn McCoy-Grunders (head of Women Aligned Against Chauvinism), who sweeps into town, takes over Ruby Bee's Cafe as headquarters (Ruby Bee is Arly's feisty mother), and soon organizes the town's down-trodden women in a noisy sit-in protest in the bank's parking lot. It ends when the bank goes up in flames, leaving in its ashes Bernswallow's body and a vanished Kevin Buchanon, the bank's dimwitted custodian. Arly works with the state police to pin down the cause of Bernswallow's death, meanwhile ferreting out some pretty shady bank procedures; tries to find Kevin, whose blimp-sized girlfriend Dahlia has also disappeared; and fails lo keep her nosy mother and buddy Estelle from running their own investigation. It seems that there's more than sympathy behind Carolyn's espousal of Johanna's cause, but Maggody's women will never be the same. Amiable, mildly raunchy fun, with a telling edge here and there to counteract all the whimsy, and another easy-to-take chapter in the ongoing saga of Maggody.

Pub Date: Aug. 23, 1989

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1989

Categories: FICTION