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Aunt Dimity Digs In

by Nancy Atherton

Aunt Dimity Digs In is one of Nancy Atherton's earlier efforts in this intriguing cozy series, always featuring a blank blue journal where the deceased Aunt Dimity's words appear and disappear as they converse with Lori, the protagonist. Aunt Dimity (who isn't Lori's aunt at all, but was her mother's closest friend) is the only fictional ghost I know of who isn't omniscient about what's happening – although at times it almost seems so.
Nancy Atherton, the author, has created most enjoyable fictional heroines with Lori plus her ghostly advisor. If you enjoy the more comfortable kind of mystery rather than the hard-boiled kind, this book is for you. There's no bloody mayhem, only the characters populating the usual English village, and the questions that arise from some of their actions.

Lori has recently given birth to twin boys, Will and Rob. Like every new mother, she's being overly protective – and her husband brings in someone to help out. The new nanny is named Francesca, and proves to be a treasure in a very short time. Meanwhile, however, an archeologist named Adrian Culver has brought in his students for the site he's uncovered, and at the vicar's suggestion, taken over the old, roomy schoolhouse to store his equipment.

All that would have been fine, except for the fact that the village Harvest Festival is coming up, and the schoolhouse is necessary for its success. Enter one Peggy Kitchen – a formidable, rather loud woman who has taken it upon herself to run the Harvest Festival. She immediately proceeds to blame the vicar, and starts printing out various brochures one of which she sends to the vicar's bishop, plus starting a petition to oust Adrian Culver from the village.

Then the vicar is burgled. He had received definite proof that the archeological site was a fake, meaning that the archeologist would leave and the schoolhouse would be free. But the proof was stolen before he had an opportunity to show it to Adrian – and Adrian won't accept just the vicar's word. As Lori investigates the robbery, she finds witnesses to a monk's ghost, worshippers of the full moon, and aliens. None of the witnesses, however, can be certain of who or what they saw because of the layer of fog from the river running by the vicar's property.

Adrian and Francesca are attracted to one another, although Francesca seems to loathe Adrian at first. And when everything is resolved at last, with the schoolhouse empty in time for the Festival and the overbearing Mrs. Kitchen put firmly in her place, the entire mystery of the burgled proof is laid bare. Aunt Dimity Digs In has a most satisfying conclusion, and the entire book is difficult not to absorb at one sitting. Ms. Atherton has developed a sense requiring her readers to become loyal fans – she understands that readers of her cozies like heroes having only very limited imperfections, and everything tied up neatly at the conclusion of the tale!

Alan Paul Curtis

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