FOR BETTER OR WORSE

By Donna Huston Murray

Ginger (a.k.a. Gin) Barnes is back after a much-too-long hiatus and I couldn’t be happier. In “For Better or Worse,” the eighth in author Donna Huston Murray’s Main Line mystery series, Gin is working hard to get her life back on track after the death of her husband three years ago. Rather than sit around, the always handy-around-the-house Gin has volunteered to help her daughter, Chelsea, and husband, Bobby, with renovations on their new home. Her first task is retiling the kitchen floor. As Gin is measuring, she’s startled to hear a loud sound outside. She discovers that someone has thrown a garbage bag loaded with clothes and bricks from the third floor of the house next door. Bricks? Yes, bricks. This is followed a short time later by what sounds like gunfire. The neighbors turn out to be the elderly and crochety Mrs. Zumstein and her grandson. Gin is starting to wonder what kind of a neighborhood her daughter and son-in-law have moved into.

Her misgivings ratchet up when she meets two of the other neighborhood couples, who each have a young child. Cissie Voight and her controlling husband Ronald are Chelsea and Bobby’s neighbors, and although Cissie loves her baby dearly, she’s having trouble adjusting to motherhood. The fact that Ronald criticizes everything she does only makes her miserable, as Gin finds out firsthand.

The other couple is Susan and Mike Swenson, parents of 18-month-old Jack. Susan has taken a part-time job and Gin is roped into babysitting, a situation Mike is not happy about.

When one of the neighbors is critically injured and dies, it’s up to Gin to unravel the mysteries of all three households so that justice can be served.

“For Better or Worse” is a roller coaster ride of a mystery with believable characters who could be anyone’s next door neighbors. Lots of twists and turns and more than one surprise at the end. A real treat for cozy readers.