Beth owns a children's bookshop in a small Wisconsin town. Her best friend bamboozles her into taking an active role in the PTA, her employee at the bookstore involves Beth in plans for a big Halloween shindig, and a new man in town has Beth rethinking her stand on dating so soon after the divorce. Then the principal of the school is murdered. As she was a thorn in the side of all who knew her, there is a lot less mourning and a lot more ghoulish interest in the details than if someone else had been a victim. This lack of respect for a human life motivates Beth to take an interest in the case, and keeping her best friend from danger makes it imperative the knowledge Beth acquires is given to the police.

Glancing at the bare bones of the summary, you might suspect it is another in the recent spate of hackneyed watery cozy mysteries. You couldn't be farther from the truth! This book is well done, very well done. Alden has strong talent and a well-skilled use of language that brings the story alive and gives vitality to each character. It is all too easy to become tired of cozy mysteries where plots are wrenched out of any linear logic and herrings of all colors are dragged across the paths of deductions just to facilitate cutesy or falsely-dangerous confrontations easily avoided through a smidgeon of common sense in the heroine. Thanks to all the gods of publishing, this series is different. Beth's decisions are believable, the jeopardy real, her motivations make sense within the framework of her life, and you find yourself rooting for her from the first page instead of wanting to shake sense into yet another "too stupid to live" heroine. I devoured this book, falling gleefully into the story and enjoying every minute. I predict Laura Alden is at the beginning of a long career with loads of grateful fans climbing on board the series with each new entry. Her second book Foul Play at the PTA is due out in July 2011.

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