Death and the Joyful Woman

This book won an Edgar award, and it deserves it.

I have recently begun to tire of much modern crime fiction. Too many authors seem to think that in order to be realistic, they must also be vulgar and profane. And they seem to think that they can pique the listener's interest by describing horrible crimes in great detail. I'm tired of all that bad language and gore, so I've been going back to crime authors of an earlier time, and I'm finding much pleasure from them.

This crime takes place in a relatively small community, so everybody knows pretty much everybody else. The victim of the murder was a detestable person, so there are plenty of viable suspects. And I really enjoyed the fact that the detective(s) didn't require guns, car chases, or fist fights. There were absolutely no martial arts involved!

On the other hand, there were people I liked and hoped were not the bad guys. There was an intricate plot. There were two detectives that used their brains and never found it necessary to call anyone a dirtbag (or even worse). Though there were no guns, there was very real peril for a favorite character, which produced a very satisfactory climax to the hunt.

I enjoyed this story a lot, and I believe that you will too, even if you still like the occasional gunfight or car chase.