No matter where you live in the U.S. or British Isles, chances are that some one is writing a mystery series set in your neck of the woods. Hangin' around one of the size acceptance message boards, I recently was directed to a series by Denise Swanson set in Central Illinois, land of the Pop Cultrue Gadabout: the Scrumble River mysteries. Just finished the series' debut, Murder of A Small-Town Honey, and found it to be a spritely entry in the Main Street Mystery sub-genre.

Perhaps the most notable modern practitioners of this particular brand of mystery novel are Lillian Jackson Braun and Charlotte MacLeod. Typically more lighthearted than big city detective fiction, these books focus more on quirky provincial characters and mores than they do on deep dark histories or noirish betrayal. At their best (MacLeod in her Peter Shandy mysteries, set in agricultural college community; Braun in her better Cat Who . . . novels), they can combine the pleasures of a formal old-fashioned mystery with a comedy of manners. An ideal, summer quick-read, in other words.

On the basis of Swanson's debut novel, I'd say she has the manners element down more strongly than the mystery. Honey introduces us to Skye Denison, a plus-sized school psychologist who's returning to her hometown of Scrumble River, IL, after being canned from her first big job counseling in New Orleans. (Unlike mystery writer Lynne Murray, whose plus-size detective Jo Fuller makes a political statement about her dress size, Swanson doesn't even tell us her heroine is fat 'til half-way into the book.) Also smarting from a broken engagement, Skye gets the job serving all three schools in the area thanks to family connections, and she's not entirely thrilled to be returning. As high school valedictorian, she'd delivered a youthfully arrogant kiss-off to her home town: now that she's back, family and friends can't resist regularly bringing up that embarrassing moment up.