This week’s book, See Also Murder, by Larry D. Sweazy, came to me as a pass-along from a friend. For those of you who like to outwit your mystery authors and guess the murderer four chapters before the end, I offer to hand it over to you. But I will want to hear if the denouement denoue-ed for you.

The narrator is Marjorie Trumaine, a North Dakota farm wife in her late 30s. After some bad years on the farm, her husband, Hank, ends up paralyzed and blind. But Marjorie’s correspondence course in book indexing lands her frequent work.

Then the sheriff stops by, reporting that her next-farm-over neighbors were just murdered. He found an amulet clutched in one of the victim’s hands. Could Marjorie, the smartest person he knows, please figure out the connection between the murders and amulet?

I liked Marjorie, who just wants her hale and hearty husband back, but knows it won’t happen. Thank goodness for the indexing work. It not only pays the bills, but suits both her bookish nature and her work-from-home limitations.

After doing her neighborly duty to the survivors of the tragedy next door, i.e. delivering pies, the rest of the novel finds her visiting the local college town, scouring the library holdings on Norse mythology, sneaking cigarettes with her good friend, the librarian, and holding her own with the snooty professors that farm folks prefer to avoid.

The more Marjorie finds out, the more she stumbles into trouble. But I won’t spoil it for you.

I think readers are supposed to catch their clues from the unearthed Norse tales, but I’m not that kind of reader. And amulets in North Dakota? What is this — Lord of the Rings??

But give See Also Murder a try and let me know what you think.

Photo credit: brian.couch.jr on Visualhunt.com /CC BY-NC