From Kirkus Reviews
Pity Molly West. Not only is she giving the biggest wedding in rural Ohio's Tricounty history--ten bridesmaids on a shoestring budget--but her daughter Amanda announces that she wants to combine her wedding to moneyed Bently Cottingham with a Civil War battle reenactment. On top of that, there's an escaped convict--Luke Siever, who busted out of Lima, obviously headed toward the wife he put in the hospital two years ago--along with rumors that right-wing paramilitaries are smuggling serious weaponry into the normally quiet Tricounty area. The only refuge from all this madness would be the past--if Bonnie Siever, hiding from her husband in the neighborhood caves, hadn't just found a ten-year-old skeleton. There are so many plot lines, in fact--together with so many death threats, bridesmaids, storied ancestors, Civil War anecdotes, and throwaway sociological theories courtesy of Molly's professor husband--that you may wonder if the happy day will ever arrive, or if you'll notice when it does. Never fear. Westfall (Fowl Play, 1996) pulls it all together, orchestrating a memorable confrontation between militiamen and re-enactors en route to a surprisingly well-clued denouement. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

It would be a challenge enough for perpetual list-maker Molly West, the director of a meal-delivery program in southern Ohio, to plan an ordinary wedding for her daughter. But this is no ordinary wedding. Molly's daughter wants the ceremony to be a costumed Civil War reenactment - and the date is only two months away. To complicate matters, Sheriff Matins warns Molly that an escaped convict is on his way to their Appalachian county, intent on disrupting more than just the wedding plans. Then a bridesmaid finds a skeleton hidden in the caves beneath her historic home - caves once used by slaves fleeing the Confederacy. Is the skeleton the remains of a forgotten Union soldier, or a more recent victim of an unsolved murder? When the case brings local stories of Civil War-era struggles back to life, Molly and her friends realize that their tight-knit community hides more than one unpleasant secret.

FROM THE CRITICS

Kirkus Reviews

Pity Molly West. Not only is she giving the biggest wedding in rural Ohio's Tricounty history—ten bridesmaids on a shoestring budget—but her daughter Amanda announces that she wants to combine her wedding to moneyed Bently Cottingham with a Civil War battle reenactment. On top of that, there's an escaped convict—Luke Siever, who busted out of Lima, obviously headed toward the wife he put in the hospital two years ago—along with rumors that right-wing paramilitaries are smuggling serious weaponry into the normally quiet Tricounty area. The only refuge from all this madness would be the past—if Bonnie Siever, hiding from her husband in the neighborhood caves, hadn't just found a ten-year-old skeleton. There are so many plot lines, in fact—together with so many death threats, bridesmaids, storied ancestors, Civil War anecdotes, and throwaway sociological theories courtesy of Molly's professor husband—that you may wonder if the happy day will ever arrive, or if you'll notice when it does. Never fear. Westfall (Fowl Play, 1996) pulls it all together, orchestrating a memorable confrontation between militiamen and re-enactors en route to a surprisingly well-clued denouement.