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Hannah Garvey Mystery #3
North of Clever
Hannah Garvey and her gang of senior sleuths are back -- just in time to get mixed up in another murder case. The circus has come to Sanity, Missouri, bringing with it magician Reilly Boone, who's claiming to be Hannah's long-lost father. Sheriff David Hendrickson is convinced Reilly and his lady-illusionist wife, AnnaLeigh, are running a scam, until AnnaLeigh catches a real bullet during their act. Now, with Reilly the number-one suspect in her murder, Hannah and the nosy residents of Valhalla Springs can't help but get involved....
384 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
75 people want to read
About the author
Suzann Ledbetter
25 books18 followersFifteen or twenty minutes of intense Website surfing suggests that biographical segments are usually devoted to former vocations, titles published and awards won. The latter two categories seem redundant to additional electronic buttonry labeled Book List, to homepages advertising current tomes, and mentions elsewhere of honors bestowed, humbly received and treasured in perpetuity.
As for the former, having not been gainfully employed in return for weekly paychecks since 1976, I assume a brief, intervening stint as a water-filled shoe insole salesperson doesn't rank right up there with the legions of doctors-, lawyers-, educators-, captains of industry-, or CIA operatives-turned-scribes.
Second to vocational pursuits are avocations, which for others range from gardening, needle-arts, molecular biology and NASCAR fanatacism to scuba-diving, astronomy, world travel, and running for miles absent a pack of rabid wolves snapping at one's heels.
The fiction writer in me yearns to invent hobbies of that ilk, as one would attribute to a novel's protagonist to make him or her interesting. The nonfiction side advises the truth, or an interpretation of it based on available research. My inner humorist struggles to keep a straight face.
Henry David Thoreau disparaged the unexamined life as unworthy of sustained respiration. Valid or not, I'll give it a whirl . . ..
When I'm not writing or speaking about writing, I'm either reading, or asleep. I adore my husband and most of the time, our children. Our basic 3bd./2 ba. home is shared with two greyhounds, two fat, hirsute cats and thousands of books--the majority shelved and probably having a scoliotic effect on the floor joists and foundation.
At work or during recess, I drink too much coffee, alternating with room-temperature Cokes slugged straight from the bottles. Caffeine, for me, is its own food group and when focused on what I'm writing, suffices for the chewable variety I'm too distracted or lazy to prepare. Habitual meal-skipping isn't recommended, but in theory, should be a literal lean cuisine. Alas, it is not.
Finishing a book, fiction or non-, induces a compulsion to rearrange the furniture. Or move. Why, I'll leave to mental health professionals. I suspect it seems easier to Dumpster the crap accumulated over the longish haul and transport items dear to my heart somewhere new and unsullied, than to clean what months of neglect hath wrought.
All in all, I suppose sedate is a nice term for this life as lived and breathed. From an exterior perspective, boring might be more appropos. An observer couldn't comprehend any better than I can explain what it is to ply a keyboard and metamorphose into whomever I want--real or imagined--residing wherever I so desire, in whatever era I choose. For richer, for poorer, for better, worse and downright tragic, until deadlines do us part.
If life and a livelihood get any better than that, I'm not aware of it. Nor, upon fleet examination, would I trade a minute of mine for someone else's better paid, cooler, infinitely more exciting and nutritious one.
In many respects, being a writer is a job, like any other. Except it isn't what I do. It's who I am.
As for the former, having not been gainfully employed in return for weekly paychecks since 1976, I assume a brief, intervening stint as a water-filled shoe insole salesperson doesn't rank right up there with the legions of doctors-, lawyers-, educators-, captains of industry-, or CIA operatives-turned-scribes.
Second to vocational pursuits are avocations, which for others range from gardening, needle-arts, molecular biology and NASCAR fanatacism to scuba-diving, astronomy, world travel, and running for miles absent a pack of rabid wolves snapping at one's heels.
The fiction writer in me yearns to invent hobbies of that ilk, as one would attribute to a novel's protagonist to make him or her interesting. The nonfiction side advises the truth, or an interpretation of it based on available research. My inner humorist struggles to keep a straight face.
Henry David Thoreau disparaged the unexamined life as unworthy of sustained respiration. Valid or not, I'll give it a whirl . . ..
When I'm not writing or speaking about writing, I'm either reading, or asleep. I adore my husband and most of the time, our children. Our basic 3bd./2 ba. home is shared with two greyhounds, two fat, hirsute cats and thousands of books--the majority shelved and probably having a scoliotic effect on the floor joists and foundation.
At work or during recess, I drink too much coffee, alternating with room-temperature Cokes slugged straight from the bottles. Caffeine, for me, is its own food group and when focused on what I'm writing, suffices for the chewable variety I'm too distracted or lazy to prepare. Habitual meal-skipping isn't recommended, but in theory, should be a literal lean cuisine. Alas, it is not.
Finishing a book, fiction or non-, induces a compulsion to rearrange the furniture. Or move. Why, I'll leave to mental health professionals. I suspect it seems easier to Dumpster the crap accumulated over the longish haul and transport items dear to my heart somewhere new and unsullied, than to clean what months of neglect hath wrought.
All in all, I suppose sedate is a nice term for this life as lived and breathed. From an exterior perspective, boring might be more appropos. An observer couldn't comprehend any better than I can explain what it is to ply a keyboard and metamorphose into whomever I want--real or imagined--residing wherever I so desire, in whatever era I choose. For richer, for poorer, for better, worse and downright tragic, until deadlines do us part.
If life and a livelihood get any better than that, I'm not aware of it. Nor, upon fleet examination, would I trade a minute of mine for someone else's better paid, cooler, infinitely more exciting and nutritious one.
In many respects, being a writer is a job, like any other. Except it isn't what I do. It's who I am.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 9, 2025
This just wasn't good. The "senior sleuths" were barely included. The plot meandered with little sense. Zero character development. Read the "Thursday Murder Club" books instead.
October 30, 2015
I think that I would have enjoyed it more if I had read the other books in the series. too many storylines from the previous books that aren't explained enough that I could get invested. the mystery was to slow and longing winded.
July 10, 2007
A slow book to get into...took me about two chapters before I could get into it. A little bit on the korny side. I don't think I will get into the series.
May 28, 2018
Hannah has never known her father, so when a visiting circus magician declares that he is, indeed, the man and has been searching for her for years, her boyfriend, sheriff David Hendrickson, thinks that it's a con. But he knows so much about her family! When her putative father is accused of murdering his beautiful, autocratic wife, he has no one to turn to but Hannah. But the lead investigator and David are both uncomfortable with the open-and-shut case against him. Can he be that good at misdirection and yet that stupid about the police?
February 17, 2019
A light enjoyable read with a few chuckles along the way.
November 26, 2022
Another great plot. Funny characters. A great book.
August 6, 2012
When the circus comes to Sanity, can murder be far behind? Hannah and the seniors are up to their eyeballs in murder once again in this hilarious third installment of the series.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews