Letter From Home

Gretchen Gilman is now the nationally famous reporter "Gigi," but back during WWII Gretchen was just a teenager getting her start on a small-town Southern newspaper. She was busy writing up the ladies social club events when a big story erupted right next door. Her best friend's mother was murdered in her own living room, and the woman's jealous husband disappeared. The story is told in flashbacks from a later point in time after Gretchen receives a letter that has sent her back home for the first time in years. She relives that summer and may finally get the answer to the questions and guilt she still carries. Kate Reading's quick changes of voice and deft use of regional accents help make this mystery a lively listen. D.G. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

Starred review from September 8, 2003
Hart has created a fabulous two-in-one: an excellent mystery and the poignant memoirs of her heroine, Gretchen Grace Gilman. A letter received by the now elderly newshound extraordinaire returns her physically, mentally and emotionally to her past and to her hometown in northeastern Oklahoma. As the pages of the letter unfold, so does the story of Gretchen's summer of 1944. With every able-bodied male involved in the war effort, Gazette editor Walt Dennis agrees to give 13-year-old Gretchen a shot as a newspaper reporter. But the sleepy town is soon rocked by the murder of Faye Tatum, an artist and the mom of Gretchen's friend and neighbor Barb. To make matters worse, the prime suspect is Barb's dad, Clyde, home on leave but nowhere to be found after the murder. Political ambitions spur the county attorney and the sheriff to track down Clyde and arrest him, while less hasty Chief Fraser is more interested in first sorting through all the facts. The obviously well-researched history draws the reader into this atypical whodunit. Characters are Steinbeck vivid, as is the sense of time and place. Hart masterfully portrays an American small town during WWII. (Oct. 7)FYI:Hart is the author of April Fool Dead (2002) and other titles in her Death on Demand mystery series, as well as Resort to Murder (2001) and other titles in her Henrie O series.