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Delectable Mountain

by Earlene Fowler

Earlene Fowler is an apt author, and creator of the 'Benni Harper' series of murder mysteries, with each book titled after a well-known quilt pattern. Delectable Mountain is no exception. In spite of Ms. Fowler's obvious interest in church and the organized religion which pervades her heroine's life, the characters of Earlene Fowler's novels come across as very real, interesting people. Delectable Mountain gives us an excellent portrait of people who are not at all what they appear to be.

Benni Harper has been 'volunteered' by her grandmother Dove into supervising a number of children and coaching them into performing a small musical production based on Pilgrim's Progress, after the abrupt departure of the music director of their church to assist her daughter who was giving birth. The play was already in rehearsal, but the performance is only two weeks away, which means that Benni and Dove will have their hands full to whip it into shape in time, especially since Benni is already involved with putting on a new opening exhibit at the museum where she works.

In addition to this, Benni's home life also becomes complicated when Luis, cousin to her Mexican police-chief husband Gabe, appears on the scene. Looking very much like Gabe, Luis is charming and sociable – until he eventually reveals the real reason he's come to visit. Then the kindly maintenance man at the church is murdered – right in the sanctuary in front of the altar – and to cap things off, a valuable violin, locked in a glass case at the museum where Benni helps out is found to be a clever fake, with the actual antique violin stolen – but nobody knows how long ago.

Things get even more complicated when it's discovered that one of the children Benni is coaching may have seen the janitor's murderer. The little girl also happens to be an illegal immigrant, so she and her mother are both especially wary of any police. Then Detective Hudson appears on the scene – and Benni has all she can do to appease her jealous husband while maintaining distance from 'Hud' – especially since she's attracted to him almost as much as he is to her.

Delectable Mountain isn't your common murder mystery story. Clues are few and far between, yet the sudden change of characters who were previously unblemished socially into people who reveal their underlying weaknesses is real enough to satisfy the most picky reader, and the outing of the murderer as well as the knowledge of who now possesses the stolen antique violin makes a fine culmination to this unusual book. Earlene Fowler writes murder mysteries in a whole new way; a way refreshingly different and inspiring.

Alan Paul Curtis

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