In “A Fair to Die For,” author Radine Trees Nehring gives us believable characters and an engrossing plot. This is the seventh in Nehring’s “to Die For” mysteries set in Northwest Arkansas locales, and her main character, Carrie Mc-Crite, carries on in her usual fearless manner. Carrie’s natural curiosity and innate desire to help her fellowman always seem to get her in a pickle, and this book carries on the tradition.
Carrie is busily preparing to help her friend Shirley with her exhibitat the War Eagle Craft Fair when she receives a phone call from a cousin she didn’t know she had. She agrees to a meeting and learns that “cousin Edie” is seeking information about her father and his possible involvement in the drug trade. When a couple of fellows claiming to be FBI men show up at her door shortly after Edie’s visit, Carrie is even more skeptical.
While working in her friend’s booth at the fair, Carrie notices her cousin in disguise and questions her connection with a fellow exhibitor who suddenly leaves the fair. When it is discovered that the missing exhibitor’s trailer has been trashed, Carrie decides to call her husband, Henry, a retired Kansas City police offi cer, to aid in her investigation.
After being questioned by the Sheriff’s Department herself and then kidnapped from the restroom at War Eagle Mill after a breakfast at the Bean Palace restaurant, Carrie is wishing she’d never gotten involved in the “Edie Mess.” But, always resourceful, she manages to leave Henry a message about her abductors and picks up enough clues to later lead investigators to thelocation where she was briefly held. When she is released by one of her captors, her emotional reunion with Henry provides a touch of romance to the story.
The plot thickens with the death of one of the drug task-force agents, the discovery of cousin Edie’s own involvement with the DEA and a family connection with Shirley’s husband Roger. But Carrie and Henry carry on and, experienced at solving several earlier crimes as a team, their knowledge of human nature and keen observation serve them well.
Staging a party at afriend’s house near the abductors’ business allows Carrie and her team to surround the building and capture the suspects. Eventually, all ends well. A major Ozarks drug ring is broken up and its local suppliers shut down. Carrie and Henry add another to their list of crimes successfully solved. Along the way, the reader is hooked through all the intriguing plot twists.
Fans of Nehring’s earlier “to Die For” mysteries will appreciate its focus on the popularWar Eagle Craft Fair and other local features. If you’ve never read the other books in the series, this would be a good book to acquaint you with Nehring’s work.
“A Fair to Die For” and Nehring’s earlier works may be purchased by calling her at 787-5930, emailing Springhollow@ arkansas.net or ordering online at Barnes and Noble or Amazon. Locally, Trolley Line Books in Rogers and Nightbird Books in Fayetteville carry all of Nehring’s books.
Community News, Pages 6 on 09/04/2013