As THE BODY IN THE CAST opens, Faith Fairchild is back in Aleford, Mass. with her second child, baby Amy, safely born, and her catering business getting up and running again. It's a stroke of good fortune for her that an eccentric director has chosen Aleford as the location for his updated version of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and Faith gets the catering contract. Meanwhile, a local political race is keeping things humming among the townspeople. As misfortunes, some of them culinary, begin to bedevil the production, Faith must investigate to protect her business. Plot and subplot are woven together neatly, but not too neatly, and the character flaws of the villains lead to their undoing. I enjoyed the setting in a New England town which seemed very familiar, and the description of the film-making process rang true. I'm looking forward to more of Faith Fairchild's adventures. ( )

An well-developed mystery featuring amateur sleuth, Faith Fairchild. This is the fifth in the series, but the first I have read. Although there are references to previous episodes, the story stands alone quite well.

Faith Fairchild, married to the local minister, mother of two pre-schoolers, runs a catering business "Have Faith." She is hired to provide food to the cast and crew of a big Hollywood movie being filmed in their small town outside of Boston. At the same time, the town is having an election with an unheard of three people running for one vacancy on the town select board. One of the candidates is royally detested by most people in town.

As the filming begins, bodies start turning up, discovered by Faith. Her black bean soup seems to be the culprit in a mass food poisoning that hits the entire crew. And everytime these incidents occur, filming must be delayed, and the director goes into a frenzy over his budget.

There is a cast of typical hollywood divas, under-appreciated crew members, spoiled children, all harboring enough secrets to keep NSA busy decoding for a year.

I enjoyed this book and will certainly look for at least one more in the series. Faith seems to be a tick above the standard amateur sleuth. She is helpful, thoughtful and quite intuitive, but does not strike off on her own, put herself in danger, or forget to involve the local police. ( )