As enjoyable as that all is, and given that the mystery smoothly moves into first gear, I was totally blown away by the events in Chapter Five. As it is in a lot of small towns, Deborah's family owns land that they also farm. Over the years the land has been divided up between several families, which forces them to agree on how to work the land together in order to leverage the most profit. Discussion on which crops to grow, and the potential problems that may grow out of the growing, were intriguing. I grew up around a lot of that myself, but I've lived in the larger cities so long that I haven't thought much of it. I enjoyed getting back to my roots by listening to Deborah and her family discuss these problems that loom so large in the lives of small towns.

The biggest part of Maron's magic is that small community feeling that's on every page of her novel. Readers will feel as though they know these people in this town within just a few short chapters. Not only that, but they'll learn the legal system and the personnel involved with it as well. The vernacular and setting reminded me a lot of author Bill Crider's Sheriff Dan Rhodes mysteries set in Texas.

In the beginning it seems as though Deborah and Dwight are working two separate cases. Deborah is trying to locate a husband in a divorce court proceeding while Dwight and the sheriff's office are picking up pieces of a murdered man spread around the county. Of course, readers will probably guess that the two cases are connected (even though the body parts no longer are!) and that the two investigations ultimately lead them to the same place.

But it's the journey Deborah, Dwight, and the reader take to get there, and the things that happen at home and between family members, that make this a real page-turner. You just can't get enough of the family problems and issues that are ladled throughout the murder mystery. Maron provides a delicious concoction of puzzle and gossip that is guaranteed to keep readers up past bedtime.