Down By the Riverside: A Shady Grove Mystery

by: Jackie Lynn

Published by: St. Martin's Minotaur

Reviewed by Andrea Sisco

Jackie Lynn also writes under the name Lynne Hinton. Her novels, such as Friendship Cake and Hope Springs, have inspired and been enjoyed by many readers. They’re what I like to call ‘feel good’ novels.

Rose decided, in a split second, that she was going to claim her mother’s name. In the future she would be called Rose Franklin. Rose couldn’t have a baby, her husband left her for a blond and then they divorced. Rose Franklin is reeling from the aftershock of a life that took a direction she’d never intended.

But Rose has a camper and a getaway plan. She fills the camper with her meager belongings and heads west from North Carolina. When her 1987 Ford Bronco conks out in West Memphis, Arkansas, she’s forced to stay for a few days at the Shady Grove campsite on the banks of the Mississippi River. But there’s trouble at Shady Grove. A well-liked man, the local undertaker, Lawrence Franklin, committed suicide for no apparent reason.

Rose doesn’t buy the suicide idea and decides to investigate the death. Her investigation leads her to believe that Lawrence Franklin was murdered. And the murder had something to do with an old slave burial site and some long-lost treasure.

On the surface, Jackie Lynn has written a cozy mystery. But it’s really more than that. It’s a delightful character study about a group of people bound together because of where their life journey has taken them. Rose meets a family with a sick child, a man called Tom Sawyer, the unusual campground owners and their employee and various other minor players who are so real they seem to jump off the page. Ultimately, for Rose, it’s about self-knowledge, survival in the face of loss and her personal spiritual journey.

Armchair Interviews says: Read Down By the Riverside and you’ll want more of Jackie Lynn’s mysteries.

Author’s Web site: http://www.LynneHinton.com