Leslie Meier
	Star Spangled Murder

First published by Kensington Publishing Corp (New York) June 2004, ISBN 1-57566-836-X. Paperback published by Wheeler Publishing November 2004 ISBN 1-48724-801-8.

Ho, hum. A female reporter in small-town New England who is also an amateur sleuth - and full time Mom. Sounds really corny, doesn't it? Yet Leslie Meier has built up a large and enthusiastic following for her heroine Lucy Stone (absolutely nothing to do with Carol Shields' Stone Diaries!). The key to the series is the human interest, with many fans saying they wished they could live in Tinker's Cove.

A substantial part of Star Spangled Murder is concerned with naturists. The delightful local woodland pool, traditionally used for skinny dipping and family picnics (not normally at the same time, apparently), has been discovered by out-of-town naturists. The news of Blueberry Pond is spread over the 'net, and the American Naturist Society soon puts it at the top of their "list of ten best places for 'enjoying the natural world au naturel'". The locals react in various ways to this nuddie invasion. Some join in enthusiastically, some are strongly opposed - to the point of trying to get an anti-nudity by-law passed - and some simply resent all the fuss.

Lucy Stone's own family is split on the issue, as you can read in the extracts. The contrast between opinions about naturism in the abstract, and opinions on one's own close relations going nude, is nicely illustrated. Meier avoids taking sides, although it seems probable that she holds two fairly common viewpoints: "it's OK for others but I don't want to do it myself or be around when others are doing it", and "most of them would look a lot better with clothes". For example, naturists' leader, Mike Gold, is described as "portly", and a character says of him "I can't see why he'd be in any hurry to strip down. Most guys his size would be happy to hide themselves inside a big old Hawaiian shirt." - clearly Mike Gold is not based on Britain's Mike Gould!

Ah, but this is supposed to be an investigation of a "murder mystery", not of US WASP mores. Except that it's much better as the latter than the former. The murder (if, indeed, it is a murder) doesn't happen until a long way into the book. Lucy Stone's sleuthing is pretty minimal and very amateurish (given that she's sorted out ten previous cases), and she never does work out who the murderer is. Various red herrings are unearthed, but they aren't followed with any great interest. According to fan reviews and yet more fan reviews, Star Spangled Murder is not up to Meier's usual standard. For their sake, I hope so, as overall this story is only so-so. Good in parts, but unsatisfying overall. Fortunately for Yarns Without Threads, the good parts include the sections dealing with naturism. If you enjoyed a previous Lucy Stone book, I suggest you read this one as an editorial sleuth - picking up the inconsistencies, mistakes and (apparently) erroneous references to characters from previous stories.

An edited version of this review appeared in the 2005 May issue of H&E Naturist magazine.

Available in the UK through Amazon.

Ratings:

Nudity	Naturist nudity	A good read?

Last updated 2005 January 1.
 
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