Sunday Morning All Around

It’s a lovely, quiet Sunday morning in NW Arkansas. The sun highlights freshly washed greens in leaves and grass. I like trees and woodsy areas. That’s probably why Darcy Campbell and Flora Tucker live in a heavily forested part of NE Oklahoma called Levi. It’s in Ventris County.

Darcy and Flora are basically country people although Darcy spent a good many years in Dallas as an investigative reporter and Flora inherited a hefty chunk of money from a dear, dead friend. From a back window in their new house smack dab in the middle of Granny Grace’s home place, the view would look something like this. A quiet place.

Ventris County was peaceful, at least on the surface, before Darcy came back from Dallas to live in her old hometown. Have you noticed that some people seem to attract intrigue? Or is it that they are just endowed with a larger than usual sense of curiosity and can’t help but roil placid waters? Well, Darcy is one of those people.

And, as Flora’s friend Pat said in their new cozy mystery, “What I want you to tell me, Flora Tucker, is what’s going on. If anybody knows, I figure it’s you or Darcy ‘cause you always seem to be right smack in the middle of trouble.”

And Pat is right. The fourth Darcy and Flora cozy barely begins until Trouble literally comes knocking on their door. You see, it happened like this: We crept downstairs, our way lit by continuously flashing lightning. Rain, flung against the house as if by a giant hand, sluiced down the windows. The frantic pounding came again.

“Some poor soul is out in this storm,” Mom said, going to the door.

Pandora should never have opened that box and Flora should never have opened the door. But, she did. And that’s what started the mystery, and as Pat said, Darcy and Flora were smack dab in the middle.

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