From Booklist
The plucky siblings Robert and Lily may live in Grace & Favor Cottage, on the Hudson, in 1933, but they must work to keep it. A local woman has turned her own home into a nursing home, and both Robert and Lily are hired to replace a sick nurse. When a difficult and crabby inmate is murdered only days from his expected natural death, the siblings join forces with the local police to try to solve the case. While this installment lacks some of the energy and plotting of earlier whodunits in this series, it is rich in period color: the inauguration of FDR and his first Fireside Chat, the repeal of Prohibition, and a homey subplot chronicling the installation of a dumbwaiter in the three-storied nursing home. A solid entry in a series that effectively merges the historical mystery with the village cozy. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
Comfortably ensconced in their late great-uncle's "Grace and Favor" mansion, brother and sister Robert and Lily Brewster are riding out the Depression, penniless but in high style. Now a new day is heralded by Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration. Barely recovered from his trip to Washington to witness the historic event, Robert is rushed by Lily to a nearby nursing home, where the Brewsters have agreed to lend a helping hand to the staff.
But when an elderly resident is murdered in his bed, Robert and Lily realize the local police will need their able assistance as well -- especially since the slaying isn't the only big trouble in tiny Voorburg. The spring thaw has revealed another body, and the Brewster siblings must expose a cold-blooded criminal before he -- or she -- kills again.
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.
Art & Photography
Book Info
