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A Tale of Two Biddies: League of Literary Ladies    by Kylie Logan Amazon.com order for
Tale of Two Biddies
by Kylie Logan
Order:  USA  Can
Berkley, 2014 (2014)
Paperback, e-Book
* *   Reviewed by Mary Ann Smyth

The resort town of Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie is all aflutter. They are celebrating Bastille Day for a week in the summer, which is fast approaching. The fact that the town has no connection whatsoever to the French holiday hasn't stopped their plans to attract visitors and tourists to swell the town's business coffers.

Bea Cartwright owns and runs a B & B and is very happily fully booked. The rock band Guillotine has signed up for the week. They are to perform in the local park. Although past their sell-by date, they still have screaming fans from their glory days. There will also be a Charles Dickens look-alike contest. Two of these hopefuls arrive and immediately try to out-do each other in their costumes and trivia about Dickens.

As the ferry docks to bring a boatload of people bearing money, Richie, a town handy man, is pushed into the lake as a storm unexpectedly brings high winds and waves. As he and the leader of the band see each other, it is obvious that they know each other and are at odds.

Bea and three of her friends decide to do some investigating when Richie is found dead – poisoned! The story is well-plotted and the writing keeps the reader turning pages. But the real delight of this book lies in the characters. I love the Defarge identical twins who own and run a knit shop. Each of Bea's three friends is a definite character who helps to move the story along.

Apart from a murder and an almost purloined picture probably worth gobs of money, the not-quite relationship between Levi, the owner of a bar, and Bea is perplexing. The Tale of Two Biddies is the second of the Bea series. I have not read the first - Mayhem at the Orient Express. I wonder if the attraction that Levi and Bea seem to have for each other started with this first of the series and will continue through each subsequent work.

However this goes, this is a delightful cozy. One to read on a snowy day in February.

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