BIGGIE AND THE FRICASSEED FAT MAN

In Job’s Crossing, Texas—the little town that sanity forgot—Grandma (—Biggie—) Weatherford keeps the peace as aggressively as Wyatt Earp once did. And if you don’t agree that that’s a chore and a half, then you’re not abreast of the body count. You’d think Job’s Crossing was nothing but mean streets the way the corpses keep piling up—and this is only number three in the series (Biggie and the Mangled Mortician, 1997, etc.). Poor Firman Birdsong comes up with the terrific notion of an all-chicken eatery but never gets to see it flourish—because on opening night there’s Firman as the fricassee of the title, plugged, then gravied from head to toe, garnished with parsley, rendered dead, and decorated by someone whose dislike of him must have been something special. As it turns out, quite a few in Job’s Crossing had it in for Firman, an entrepreneur with a checkered past. His brother, for one. Then there’s Dub Watkin, Firman’s rival for the affections of lush Fairy Lee. Plus a pair of mysterious strangers who complicate life for just about everybody but particularly for J.R., the story’s 12-year-old narrator, since one of the two is his long-lost—and very predatory—other grandma. And then there’s a second murder, seemingly connected to the first, though why kill a dotty old man who rides a lawn mower, convinced it’s a cayuse? Grandma Weatherford finally loses patience and nails the perp, as is her wont. Southern-fried folksiness (and recipes), possibly harmful to sensitive stomachs.