MURDER FOR GOOD

Ellie Quicke (Murder by Suggestion, 2018, etc.) finds herself battered by the winds of good fortune.

Pessimists say that if they didn’t have bad luck they’d have no luck at all. And Ellie is accustomed to a certain amount of ill fortune. Her feckless daughter, Diana, has a nasty habit of turning up on her doorstep demanding money for one outrageous scheme after another. This time, Diana wants Ellie to sell her large, lovely home so that she can invest the proceeds in a shady real estate scheme that will cover the shortfall of Diana’s last unwise business venture. Meanwhile, Ellie has offered homeless Hetty a temporary spot in her house’s upper floor apartment only to be rewarded with constant noise and commotion as Hetty invades her kitchen, cooking Ellie and her husband, Thomas, unwanted, inedible meals and joining them uninvited as they try to entertain friends. Even Ellie’s good luck is bad: When her clergyman husband starts to receive a series of bequests from parishioners he can’t remember, he’s spooked at first, then alarmed once the police receive a tip suggesting that Thomas may have deceived or coerced the deceased benefactors into their donations. The crowning blow is the most generous. When Ellie receives a whopping bequest of her own, it takes all her strength, faith, and ingenuity to cope with her windfall.

Heley’s heroine needs the patience of Job to triumph. Readers will need the same to read about it.