LEE HARRIS – The Good Friday Murder. Fawcett Gold Medal, paperback original; 1st printing, April 1992. TV movie: Hallmark Channel, 2004, as Murder Without Conviction (with Megan Ward as Christine Bennett & Morgan Weisser as Det. Jack Brooks).

   When I went to Google to look up Lee Harris’ real name, Syrell Rogovin Leahy, I came upon a website for a public library somewhere where three of her novels (non-criminous) were listed, in a category of books called Tearjerkers: A Book of Ruth, Circle of Love, and Love Affair. (Following next were Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Richard Llewellyn’s How Green Was My Valley. That’s pretty good company.)

   These books all came before The Good Friday Murder, which was the author’s first mystery. Unless I’ve lost count, there are now 14 in the series, with one or two coming out every year through 2002, when The Happy Birthday Murder appeared.

   [UPDATE:   The Cinco de Mayo Murder is the 17th and presumable the last. It came out in 2006.]

   But if at all possible, if you think you’d like to try one, start with this first one, which as chance would have it, is what I did. It’s a good one, and with no effort on your part, I’d be happy to tell you more.

   I knew from reading the back covers that Christine Bennett was once a nun, but under what circumstances she left the convent and became involved in mystery cases, I did not know. The answers are to be found in this book, which is why you should perhaps start with this one.

   Part of the charm of this early book in the series, at least, is that Kix (to her friends) is not used to talking to strangers, and yet she manages very well; she is unused to things like bridge tolls and the high price of parking in Manhattan, yet she ends up driving back and forth several times into the city from a small town an hour or so up the Hudson.

   She is also definitely not used to being physically attracted to good-looking men, of which Sergeant Jack Brooks is one, and it’s an absolute pleasure to be allowed to be there with them as each of them learns who the other is.

   And yes, there is a murder to be solved, one that occurred on a Good Friday forty years earlier. A pair of twin boys, 29 years old, but savants unable to care for themselves — yet capable of doing miraculous feats of memory and mental computations — were blamed at the time, but they were never convicted of killing their mother.

   Separated ever since, Robert and James Talley were institutionalized, fell into severe depression, and generally wasted their lives. Until, that is, Christine is able to reunite them, clear their names and make them whole again, with misty eyes all around.

   As a detective, Christine Bennett is a gifted amateur, working out the facts by doing a lot of footwork and being a good judge of character. The final melodramatic scene of kidnap and rescue didn’t seem quite to fit the high caliber of what came before, but there’s nothing in this that would make me dissuade you in any way from reading this book.

   Which I did in one evening. Very enjoyable.

[UPDATE #2] I had not seen the movie when I wrote this review, but I do remember watching it later on. I may be wrong about this, but the film followed the book quite well. It’s too bad it didn’t turn into a series.

   Of course that statement is based only on my memory of it. I found it on DVD on Amazon for three dollars, so I ordered it. Perhaps I’ll report back on it here on this blog one of these days.

   As much as I enjoyed the book, I have not, alas, read any of the others in the series. I suppose it the series falls into the “cozy” category, but if what I said in the review is true, it’s one in which the characters are serious about they’re doing, and the mystery isn’t bad, either.