Betsy Brannon Green

Title: Puzzle Pieces (A Haggerty Mystery #9)
Author: Betsy Brannon Green
Pages: 309
Year: 2015
Publisher: Covenant Communications, Inc.
Presley (yes, as in Elvis) DeGraff is a young lawyer running for her life. She has escaped a mental hospital with the clothes on her back and her driver’s license. Her parents died two years ago and left Presley all their money, which was a lot. Presley was raised with very few friends and spent most of her free time with her parents. When a handsome lawyer arrives at the law firm where she works and pays attention to her, she falls in love with him and accepts his marriage proposal. He slowly weasels control from her of her considerable assets and eventually has her declared incompetent so he could steal her money! She travels from Columbus, Ohio to the small town of Haggerty, Georgia where her great Aunt Violet has a small law practice. She is desperate for a place to hide until she can figure out what to do Presley shows up on Aunt Violet’s doorstep.
While staying with Aunt Violet, Presley meets a host of unforgettable characters. While preparing for a large garden to be planted, a skeleton is discovered in Aunt Violet’s backyard. Presley wants to find out the identity of the skeleton and the killer, but will she be around long enough to find out? Presley has become enamored of the town’s local tow driver, who happens to be an ex-NFL star. They form a friendship, but Presley is afraid to take the next step in the relationship as she doesn’t want to put Mac or anyone else in danger from her ex-fiancé, who she fears will track her down. What can she do?
Overall, this was an easy book to read. There was not much tension in the story after the opening scene, clean language, and a real down home feeling to it. The pace was slow and the focus seemed to me to be more on the main character, her issues and the developing relationships she has with some of the town folk rather than solving the murder. I wish I would have known this book was part of a series so I could have read some of the other prior books for background on some of the characters. I felt as if I was missing something between some of the characters and their relationships/friendships with one another. However, the author definitely has a sense of humor that came shining through in several of the characters, Miss Eugenia and her sister Annabelle in particular. They were two of my favorites! I also loved how Aunt Violet welcomed Presley with open arms and no questions…unconditional love. This book will fill the bill for a rainy afternoon’s entertainment for sure!
My rating is 4 stars.
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The nearby town of Midway, Georgia has Miss Eugenia involved from her home in Haggerty and all the other favorite characters as well. Small-town Librarian gets offered a new library when a big developer comes to town, but a man who comes in with his niece to get a book for schoolwork and applies for a library card dies two hours after she saw him. The sheriff thinks it is suicide, but neither Kennedy Killingsworth or Miss Eugenia thinks it is. Romance comes into play when she deals with the developer, his project manager, the dead man's nephew, Luke Scoggins, newly returned from Iraq. There is also her cheating ex-husband Cade who is determined to win her back. Full of laughs and great characters as well as the mystery, librarians everywhere will enjoy this book.… (altro)