I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the first seven books in the Liturgical Mystery series, and now I’m happy to finally get back to it. “The Organist Wore Pumps” is the eighth time organist/choir director Hayden Konig gets to investigate a crime – when he’s not trying to write hard-boiled detective fiction in the manner of Raymond Chandler. Oh, and he’s also the town’s chief of police. It all works out with a cast of characters every bit as lovable and eccentric as those in Mitford.

The Gentleman Farmers read like a cosy, but without a murder! So I suppose it wasn’t a real cozy after all. The heroine, Maggie Kingsbury, is the narrator of the tale. Actually, the book is presented as her diary or journal – she’s continually saying she’ll burn the manuscript after she says something embarrassing about a family member. The novel begins in the “Old World” – upstate New York of recent years, beset by falling home prices, rising crime, and worsening quality of life. Maggie recounts how she’s spent her life in her hometown, which is turning into a slum. After being mugged, Maggie’s sister Molly and her husband, Maggie’s friend Kevin, set off for the “New World” – a gentleman’s farm outside Asheville, N.C. The second half of the book focuses on how the three, with Molly and Kevin’s children, set up on their 10-acre “family compound” with hens, sheep, and goats. Everything that can go wrong does – and then, Maggie is accused of being a Nazi, because she defends a monument of Robert E. Lee. How the sisters and Kevin become true “Gentlemen Farmers” will captivate and charm you.