When the reliable Headmistress disappears, it’s up to young teachers Charlie Carr and Annie Gardner to find her. This small-town cozy is full of wonderful characters and warm humor. Also available in Large Print.

Set in small-town Georgia USA in 1942, this first in the Miss Dimple Kirkpatrick series sees the steady-as-a-rock first grade teacher kidnapped.

I remember being a little disappointed in this, but I can’t recall anything else about it. Many readers, though, highly praise the details of the setting.

3½ stars ( )

An historical mystery set in the south Georgia during WWII, Miss Dimple is the highly vaunted spinster school-teacher everybody respects and adores. She goes missing the day after the janitor of the school is found dead under questionable circumstances.

I enjoyed reading this one, but I'm a bit stumped about how to describe it. Each chapter starts with someone's internal dialogue (in italics, so it's an easy flag that you're inside someone's head) and it's almost always a different character. The main character is Charlie, and she and her best friend Annie get the most page time, but they don't really investigate the murder and Miss Dimple's disappears so much as worry over it and gossip about it. There's a small romance too, but it's almost an afterthought and lacks any read tension; the story is no more or less than it would be without it.

Ultimately there aren't any surprises; it's a low-key read that's easy going, neat and tidy. It's the reading equivalent of a digestive biscuit: pleasant, satisfying but not something you're going to run out to the market for at 11pm because you have to have it.

I have one more of the Miss Dimple books on my TBR (I bought it for a buck at a book sale) and while I won't be rushing to read it, it likely won't languish as long in the TBR strata as this one did. ( )

This was a quiet cozy mystery that really was a mystery until the last pages. ( )

Not your usual mystery. It never seemed like anyone was investigating. I enjoyed it though. I'm not sure if I would read another. ( )