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Review: In Cricket McRae's second home crafting mystery, Heaven Preserve Us, soap maker and amateur sleuth Sophie Mae Reynolds investigates the "death by natural causes" of a man who died in her arms, supposedly of food poisoning.

Sophie Mae is volunteering her services to the Heaven House Helpline (HHH, for short) where people in distress call for advice and help. It appears, however, that just as much help is needed inside the HHH as on her second day there, the night of the preserve exchange, Philip Heaven, who created the foundation, falls gravely ill. Sophie Mae goes to his assistance and while waiting for an ambulance he mutters to her, "Threat. Meant it." He dies the very next day. Although the medical examiner rules the death natural due to a botulism toxin brought on by eating tainted beets in some of the preserves, Sophie Mae cannot get his last words out of her mind. So, as is her vigorous and usual custom, she sets out to discover the source of the tainted beets. The police, including her new boyfriend Detective Barr Ambrose, who also becomes ill from the same beets, tell her to back off but Sophie Mae is sure Philip was murdered. How could she convince the police of what she believes to be true? And just who is the stranger outside her window, watching her every move?

Sophie Mae is a confident woman with an appetite for mystery and Heaven Preserve Us is a good one. The author shows that in Sophie Mae, one can find the good in most people, young and old, and that she'd rather laugh than cry when things beyond her control go wrong. The characters are engaging, the story intriguing, and the book a pleasure to read.

Heaven Preserve Us by Cricket McRae — A Home Crafting Mystery with Sophie Mae Reynolds

Publisher: Midnight Ink
Format: Trade Paperback
ISBN-13: 978-0-7387-1122-5
Publication Date: August 2008
List Price: $13.95