It Had to Be You

Wendy Dillon brings just the right period feel to Jill Churchill's post-Depression mystery. Soon after Robert and Lily Brewster agree to help out at a local nursing home, a comatose patient, who was only hours from dying, is murdered. Dillon's pleasant, intelligent narration enhances period details and keeps things lively as Robert and Lily assist Police Chief Walker and his rookie deputy with their investigation. When a second body is found under the melting ice of a stagnant lake, the detectives, both amateur and professional, begin to put the puzzle together with shocking results. IT HAD TO BE YOU takes a nostalgic look at murder most polite. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

April 1, 2004
It's March 1933: FDR is inaugurated as president, Prohibition is repealed and Brewster siblings Robert and Lily must solve two puzzling murders in Jill Churchill's It Had to Be You: A Grace & Favor Mystery, the fifth entry in this gently amusing cozy series (after 2003's Love for Sale). Churchill, who's won both Agatha and Macavity awards, is also the author of Bell, Book, and Scandal (2003) and other titles in her Jane Jeffrey series.