It Had to Be You (Grace & Favor Mystery Series) FROM THE PUBLISHER
"March 3, 1933, the day before Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration. While Robert Brewster heads to Washington, D.C., to witness the historic event, his sister, Lily, travels to a nursing home near Grace & Favor. The owner, Miss Twibell, has lost an assistant nurse, and the siblings have agreed to help out." "The home is full of colorful characters, including a cantankerous old man named Sean Connor, the only patient who is seriously ill. The very day the Brewsters arrive, he slips into a coma and passes away. Though saddened, no one is surprised by his death - until it's revealed that he's been murdered. The old man wasn't well liked, but who would bother to murder him when he had so little time left? Several people had visited his room that morning, and there are plenty of suspects. Good motives, on the other hand, are thin on the ground." "And Mr. Connor isn't the only victim in town. Over the winter, a young man went missing and was presumed dead, though no body was found. Now that the spring sun has melted the ice, a body has surfaced. Is this the missing man or has a third crime been committed?" With multiple murders plaguing the community, the Brewster siblings are more committed than ever to helping the police find a cold-blooded criminal before he strikes again.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
It's March 1933: FDR is inaugurated as president, Prohibition is repealed and Brewster siblings Robert and Lily must solve two puzzling murders in Jill Churchill's It Had to Be You: A Grace & Favor Mystery, the fifth entry in this gently amusing cozy series (after 2003's Love for Sale). Churchill, who's won both Agatha and Macavity awards, is also the author of Bell, Book, and Scandal (2003) and other titles in her Jane Jeffrey series. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
The fifth entry in Churchill's Depression-era series featuring the sibling heirs of a land speculator shows the pair working at a nursing home near their own "Grace and Favor" mansion. Robert's and Lily's jobs require laundry toting, floor mopping, and little-old-lady sitting. Unfortunately, one old man on the verge of death is found smothered. The nurse suspects something immediately, authorities are informed, and statements are taken. True to form, Lily and Robert contribute their own sleuthing, especially after another corpse appears. The narrative seems a bit forced, the conversations mundane, and the transitions abrupt, but undemanding fans may appreciate the historical references. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Impoverished socialites Lily and Robert Brewster (Someone to Watch Over Me, 2001, etc.) try their hand at nursing-with a healthy dose of sleuthing thrown in. To maintain Grace and Favor, their cottage in Voorburg-on-Hudson, and to keep gas in their yellow Deusenberg, the siblings agree to help their neighbor, Miss Twibell, who's turned the house next door into a convalescent home. Eulalia Smith and Francine Jones are model patients: infirm and garrulous, but kind. They've also handed over their modest fortunes to Miss Twibell in return for medical care and a steady supply of knitting yarn. Mark Farleigh is an odd duck who spends most of his days working in the garden rather than resting in bed. Sean Connor, however, is just plain nasty, yelling nonstop at Betty and Mattie, the two nurses who clean and dress his badly infected knee. So no one, not even his wife, is terribly upset when he dies. But Miss Twibell is suspicious. Even though visiting nurse Lucy Mae Quincy pronounced him near his end, a bloody pillow next to Connor's bed suggests that someone may have helped him along into the next world. But who would kill an old man with a day or two left to live? That's what Lily has to help police chief Howard Walker-the man Robert suspects she'll marry some day-find out. Brisk as Nurse Twibell, Churchill's latest marches staunchly to its prescribed conclusion.
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