From Publishers Weekly
Peaches Dann, a 55-year-old widow with a notably poor memory, makes her debut as an amateur sleuth when she finds her aunt, Nancy Means, floating face down in a pond at her father's house. Harwood "Pop" Smith, a tactless, wheelchair-bound gent with occasional paranoid delusions, decides to solve the crime and grills family and friends after his sister's funeral: none has a decent alibi, and at least one had reason to fear and dislike the victim. Peaches is disturbed by the fact that Nancy died wearing a dress much like one she herself owns, and her uneasiness intensifies when she discovers a deadly trap set for her inside Pop's house. Meanwhile, Albert, Nancy's antiques-dealing son, is concerned that two valuable objects, a miniature portrait and a Confederate soldier's belt buckle, seem to be missing from Pop's home. With the help of Ted (her significant other) and endless mnemonic devices (many of which she records in tediously cute passages of a book she is writing), Peaches successfully tracks the killer, but she never does hit on the trick it takes to make Squire's ( Kill the Messenger ) tale any more than ordinary. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.