Review: Shakespeare's Trollop by Charlaine Harris

Author: Charlaine Harris
Publisher/Format: Recorded Books, audio 6 discs, 7 hours, 194 pages equivalent
Narrator: Julia Gibson
Characters: Lily Bard
Subject: murder in a southern setting
Setting: fictional small town in Arkansas
Series: Lily Bard Mysteries
Genre: amateur sleuth mystery
Source: public library

In this warm and cozy mystery series Shakespeare is the name of a town in Arkansas, not a playwright. Lily Bard, a young woman who works as a house cleaner has evidently come to this small town to escape reminders of a very violent incident in her past.  This is the fourth of six in the series, and I didn't feel I absolutely had to have read the previous entries to enjoy this one. I am however, going to be sure to look them up.  The past sounds every bit as interesting as the present.

In this one, Lily discovers a dead body: one of her clients who had a reputation for being a bit loose with her morals.  One of the trollop's latest and most consistent clients (whom Lily can identify as having been in and out of the victim's apartment) happens to be the local sheriff's brother.  While the sheriff, with Lily's reluctant cooperation, is trying to solve the murder, Lily is also trying to resolve her feelings about her current boyfriend Jack Leeds, a private investigator who seems to be more absent than present in her life.  In the meantime, she continues with her eccentric cast of clients and her personal fitness routine at the gym/karate venue.  The murder is eventually solved with the perpetrator probably being a surprise to most readers.

As with other series by Charlaine Harris, humor abounds, the southern setting is charming but not cloying, and readers can settle down to enjoy a good mystery with likeable characters and an interesting setting.  Definitely worth checking out.