Maggody and the Moonbeams

New York: Simon & Schuster. Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 2001. Book Club Edition. Hardcover. 256 pages. An Arly Hanks Mystery, No. 13. Arly Hanks -- the wiliest chief of police in the Ozarks -- is back on the case in Joan Hess's latest comedy-filled whodunit. And this time around, our intrepid sleuth may have met her match: she's just been pressed into service as chaperone for the church youth group. Ten hormonally challenged teenage boys and girls are spending a week at Camp Pearly Gates, accompanied by the formidable wife of the mayor, the high school shop teacher, and preacher Brother Verber. It's bad enough that Arly has to bunk with this crew, but when, on a dark and stormy night, one of the girls stumbles over the body of a white-robed woman with a shaved head, Arly knows things can only go downhill. Investigating the murder, Chief of Police Hanks finds herself hindered by an eccentric cast of characters, from the bumbling local police and a band of spacey cultists to her own menopausal mother and an oddly intriguing (and attractive) fisherman called Jacko. Meanwhile, back in Maggody, Arkansas (population 755), Mayor Jim Bob Buchanon is up to his usual philandering antics, Raz Buchanon is looking for an animal companion to keep his pig Marjorie company, and Duluth Buchanon's wife has gone missing with their two sons. With her trademark wit, "the patron saint of comic mystery" (as Sharyn McCrumb calls her) combines humor and mayhem in her best and bawdiest episode yet in the annals of Maggody. .