‘Preaching to the Corpse’ by Roberta Isleib

Published by Berkley Prime Crime. December 2007

ISBN: 978-0-425-21837-2

Rebecca Butterman is back, after her debut in Deadly Advice, in the second entry in the charming new series by Roberta Isleib.  Rebecca is a clinical psychologist, as well as writing a weekly advice column, what she describes as “Bloom magazine’s answer to Ann Landers…I moonlight as Dr. Aster, Bloom! Online magazine’s expert on heartbreak and love…comforting the sick at heart and counseling the confused.”  [There are even a few column entries included, always enlightening.]  But suddenly she is called upon late one night when Reverend Wesley, the minister at her local church, is being held in custody after a woman he visited died shortly after he got there, apparently having been poisoned.  He refuses to talk to the police until Rebecca arrives.  The dead woman was heading up the committee formed to choose a new minister for the Shoreline Congregational Church in their small Connecticut town, a position intended to smooth the transition, from a man who had suddenly left the congreg ation, to his successor.

Rebecca is persuaded by the detective in charge of the case to accede to the pleas of Wesley to head up the committee in the place of the dead woman.   Her ambivalence is partially caused by the fact that she and the detective had briefly had a relationship of sorts in the case at the heart of the prior novel, which quickly ended due to the fact that he was married.  But she agrees to help, saying “If I can help ease Wesley off the hook, it helps the whole church.”

The victim was known to be secretive and controlling, but the cops are hard pressed to try to find a motive.  The ensuing investigation, by the detective with the decided assistance of Rebecca, turns up some surprising things and, of course, endangers her life.  In the process, she gives the reader yet another wonderful read.  Rebecca is an interesting protagonist, still getting over the dissolution of her marriage, saying of herself “The man in my life purrs and uses a litter box.  Slightly pathetic.”  I have been a fan of this author’s terrific Golf Lover’s Mysteries, but this new one is every bit as much fun.  Recommended.

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Gloria Feit