Finished audio 11-19-11, rating 3.5/5 , mystery, pub. 1996

Unabridged audio. 6.75 hours. Read by Julia Gibson.

Book 1 in the Lily Bard mystery series

Lily has cleaned houses for four years in Shakespeare, Arkansas.  She knows things no one else does, but is careful to guard her own scarred past.  She has no friends, but is somewhat obsessed with her self-defense classes.  When she sees someone dumping a body in the middle of the night she investigates, only to find her ex-landlord dead in a plastic bag.  Not wanting to get involved she makes an anonymous tip to the police chief.

Lily was distant at first, not wanting the reader to know her own past secrets, but as she opened herself up to a few people in Shakespeare we saw a Lily that could have friends and could have a normal life.  She remained feisty and no-nonsense and easy to like.  A few months after Gage was born, after I realized that I might never have time to really clean the house again, we hired someone to come twice a month and give the floors, bathrooms and kitchen a good cleaning.  I’ve always wondered what she thinks of us based on our dirt.  Reading about Lily gave me some idea!

There were a lot of characters and that means many potential suspects.  The mystery was good and it was told nicely with Lily’s personal life and back story.  I thought Harris did an excellent job of creating a unique character and a plausible murder mystery.

That being said I am not sure it was memorable enough for me to continue on with the series.  I’m already so behind in so many series that I love that one book with Lily will probably be enough.

I checked this audio book out of the library.