Frances and Richard Lockridge, Murder and Blueberry Pie

Frances and Richard Lockridge, Murder and Blueberry Pie
Copyright © 1959 Frances and Richard Lockridge
Available as an e-book


A Nathan Shapiro story.  The (young) widow of a USAF pilot who died in an accident, living in a small Connecticut town, becomes involved (in order)  a tour of colonial homes, as a singatory to a will, with the editor of the local newspaper, and murder.

The first murder in question takes place in NYC and, through a series of circumstances, brings Detective (first class) Nathan Shapiro to the suburbs; there is some reason to believe that the victim's death might be related to the signing of the will of an elderly woman in the town.  The murder and Shapiro's investigation, are nicely handled.  


One of Shapiro's ongoing personality quirks is his sense of inferiority as a detective--which we, as readers, rapidly learn is a misperception on his part.  So we have a generally engaging cast and a nice piece of detection by Shapiro.  The book has, I think, a couple of problems, one minor and one. for me, major.  The minor flaw is that the emerging romantic involvement of the newspaper editor and the woman whose husband has died takes up too much space; the "blueberry pie" interlude is an example..  But that's OK.  


The major flaw, for me, is something that shows up with regularity in the Lockridge's books.  There is an extended fem-jep scene, in which the jeopardy comes to naught, and that could have been eliminated at no real cost to the story.  If those two episodes were eliminated, however, the book would be too short (to be a novel) and too long (to be a novella). 

A pleasant read, but not a compelling one.