Customer Reviews

A Lie for a Lie (Ministry is Murder Mystery)

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In A LIE FOR A LIE, Emilie Richards again takes us into the life of Aggie Sloan- Wilcox, the loving wife of minister, Ed, and the mother of two girls, Deena and Teddy. As with any family there's always some trauma going on with the Wilcox family. This time it concerns the oldest daughter, Deena, who is humiliated because her father told a story about her in one of his sermons. I like the way Emilie Richards handles her characters. They are easy to visualize and often seem like people you might know. I really enjoy reading about Aggie's mother, Junie, who is colorful and fun and my very favorite is daughter Teddy, who reminds me of someone near and dear!

Aggie's world is not exactly what you might think, because she's also an amateur detective who seems to have the knack for solving mysteries!

The Wilcox family lives in the small town of Emerald Springs and the story begins with the town organizing a fund raiser to help the local hospital. A talent show is planned and Grady Barber, a well known singer, who was raised in Emerald Springs is chosen to be the judge of the talent show. Aggie's asked to assist Grady in making his life comfortable and the job turns out be a nightmare because Grady is difficult, selfish and demanding!

During this same period, Sister Nora, a circus owner and preacher buys land in the small town, and brings her menagerie of animals and circus entertainers to the once peaceful town. Her controversial agenda is to build a biosphere to keep humanity and animals safe for the future. There's so much going on, that something has to give. Of course, a murder takes place and Aggie can't help getting involved! I liked the way the way the various people came to life and how Aggie describes their personalities.

This is the fourth book in this mystery series and Richards does not disappoint.

Aggie is a minister's wife with a mission, well in addition to the obvious. She solves murders and how she gets herself into and out of those situations will make you laugh out loud. Emilie Richards is a genius in her story telling and her characters.
A lie for a Lie is the 4th in her Ministry is Murder series but holds up really well as a stand alone.
I would recommend this to any one

In Emerald Springs, Ohio, the minister's wife Aggie Sloan-Wilcox tries to live up to the image of her position, but has a talent of finding dead bodies and determining who killed them. The new group in town is Sister Nora's Inspirational Tent Show, a circus whose acts comes straight out of the bible. Aggie likes the woman who says she hears God and he is telling her to build a biosphere in Emerald Springs so when pollution makes survival impossible, some remnants of humanity will be saved.

Aggie is also working on a committee for the Emerald Springs Idyll talent show, a fundraiser to build a children's hospital. Judging the acts will be Grady Berber, a local who made it in Hollywood. Aggie is an assistant to Grady's assistant and she learns he is a pampered mean spirited individual who angrily takes out his displeasures on others. When Aggie enters his room, she finds Grady dead; his neck slashed by a knife like one used at Nora's circus. On the nearby wall the letters NOR is written; the police believe Nora, who is Grady's ex-wife, killed him. Aggie believes otherwise, but is unaware how much danger she places herself and her daughter in from an alert murderer.

This is a jewel of a book; a creative cozy that will fascinate readers as it does Aggie first by Grady's temper tantrums and then his death. There are plenty of people who firmly believed the world would be a better place if Grady was in hell rather than making everyone else's life one. The lead police investigator and Aggie's husband would prefer she stay out of the inquiry, but don't bother to tell her so as they know better. Fans of small Midwestern town mysteries will enjoy A LIE FOR A LIE that is as much a look at life in Emerald Springs as it is a whodunit.

Harriet Klausner

When a small circus anchors itself on a vacant farm just outside Emerald Springs, Ohio, the city council (as Aggie Sloan-Wilcox observes) is probably having SNITS--which is the acronym of the circus's name (Sister Nora's Inspirational Tent Show, a platform for the eponymous Nora's supposedly divinely inspired message regarding global warming). But Aggie soon finds herself having rather more than snits when she's dragooned into serving as the town's liaison to Grady Barber, a former movie star and recording artist who's attempting to make a comeback and is using his boyhood home town as a stepping stone to that end, having agreed to judge the local elimination talent show being held to finance a new pediatric wing for the hospital. Barber, it turns out, is demanding, tyrannical, and bad-tempered, and when, almost halfway through the book, Aggie finds him knifed to death in his dressing room, she isn't entirely surprised; apparently he'd made a large cast of people mad at him over the years. But when Sister Nora turns out to have been his first wife--and the murder weapon to have come from her headquarters--Aggie refuses to believe that she may have been the one who got mad enough to put Grady's lights out for good. And so once again she's in the thick of the investigation, this time with the tacit consent of both her concerned-but-supportive husband and hunky Detective Roussos. Who *really* killed Grady--his much-abused personal assistant, the mother of the finalist he was "coaching," the man whose wife he seduced on a previous local talent show, or someone entirely different? Meanwhile Aggie's elder daughter Deena is undergoing the trials of teenhood, made no easier by her participation in the show. Well-paced and full of chuckling humor and small-town atmosphere, this fourth in the series continues the promise of its predecessors.

Another great book by Ms. Richards. You can't miss when you pick up one of her novels. Each and every one is a winner and a worthwhile read.

So often a successful writer will soon have people saying "Not as good as her early work..." Sometimes I think that's really true, and sometimes it's just a question of coming to the book with high expectations.

Emilie Richards consistently delivers a well-plotted, engaging cozy mystery. The detective-character is a Unitarian minister's wife, Aggie Sloan-Wilcox. They live in a small town somewhere in Ohio and have two school-age daughters. Aggie is likeable and easy to identify with, as she tries to be a good mother, not offend members of her husband's congregation and yet have a life of her own, and manage to earn some money "flipping" houses with her best friend-realtor-business partner.

The plot for this book involves Grady Barber, a Simon Cowell-like character who is being paid to judge an charity-fund-raiser knock-off of American Idol -- they're calling it Emerald Springs Idyll, after the town. Grady offends people right and left, including poor Aggie, who has been given the task of liaisoning with his long-suffering assistant to keep Grady happy. Meanwhile, an ecology-focused circus has come to town to build a biosphere: the circus's founder is convinced that God has commanded her to do this and to preach greater concern for the planet.

Although I wasn't stunned at the perpetrator of the murder, I hadn't figured it all out either -- it really could have been one of several people. If I had any criticisms, it has to do with something that makes me remind myself it's just a story: that criticism is that Aggie puts herself and her family in danger with some of the chances she takes. It doesn't detract from an enjoyable read, however.

I was really looking forward to this book. Unfortunately, compared to the other books in this series, which truly were page turners, I found this one somewhat tedious and felt it was lacking...something.

With the backdrop of Emerald Springs and the usual cast of characters, the circus comes to town, but not just an ordinary circus. This circus uses its acts to depict stories from the Bible. However, the goal of this particular circus group is to build an end-times biosphere; a modern-day Noah's ark. Okay...I can go with this...so far.

However, since the real fun of this series is Aggie's uncanny ability to stumble upon dead bodies, the high-jinks she gets up to with her best friend in trying to solve the crime, the warm but within-the-bounds-of-appropriate chemistry with Detective Roussos who, of course, is always first cop on the scene of a murder, we don't get to enjoy any of that because this murder doesn't happen until about half way through the book! I found myself surprised that I was tempted to abandon the read several times whereas the previous books have left me chuckling and anxious to see what happens on the next page, and the next.

Her writing is always superb, but I felt the usual energy and velocity was just not there.

I'm still looking forward to her next one and hope that it moves along more quickly - and I wouldn't mind if things got just a little warmer (but still within bounds, of course...) with Aggie and Roussos :)

This summer, the town of Emerald Springs has been caught in a heat wave. As day after day of record breaking temperatures hit the small town with no end in sight, Aggie gets drafted to help with a fund raiser. A group is putting on a talent competition and selling tickets to each round. One of the judges is local boy made good Grady Barber, an actor and singer who has had two big hits in his career.

Also in town this summer is SNITS (that's Sister Nora's Inspirational Tent Show), a circus and revival meeting all rolled into one. Sister Nora insists she is on a mission from God to spread the word about global warming, a warning Aggie can't argue with in the middle of the current heat wave.

Once Grady hits town, things get even hotter. The man is a demanding jerk who doesn't think of anyone else's needs. Which is why Aggie is hardly surprised when she finds Grady's body. The big surprise is who the police arrest for the crime. Are they right? If not, can Aggie dig up the truth on her own?

I love these characters, so I was thrilled to be back in town for the latest adventure. This time around, I really enjoyed the sub-plot involving older daughter Deena.

Overall, the plot was good with several surprises along the way before things started falling into place. Unfortunately, the story took a little too long to get going. Even if I hadn't read the back of the book, it was obvious who the victim would be. I really do wish he would have died sooner. Still, the climax was perfect.

Time with these characters is always enjoyable. I hope we get another visit to Emerald Springs very soon.