12/15/01

Though I’ve never been to France, Susan Kiernan-Lewis makes me want to buy a ticket and hop on the first plane out of the United States. I wanted to see the French countryside, breathe the salty sea, and view the majestic purple fields described in her book, Toujours Dead. I wanted to live in a small chateau, smell the yeast of sweet bread in bakery shops, talk to the natives and wonder what the heck they were saying. I wanted to find a house with a basement and peruse its selection of wines, stepping over the body of course. Whoa! Wait a minute. The body? Let’s back up a second.

At the beginning of Toujours Dead (Always Dead), we are swept back in time and witness a gruesome execution. Then, as the story unfolds, we meet the lovely Maggie Newberry, a thirty-something copywriter who has quit her job in Atlanta, Georgia in order to move to St-Buvard, France with her boyfriend, Laurent. Laurent has inherited a house and about 50 acres of vineyards; the couple has decided to live in France for a year while Laurent ponders the decision of keeping or selling his inheritance. Unfortunately, Laurent’s inheritance has a few remaining ghosts in the closet, or shall I say on the front steps. It seems that a gruesome murder – yes, the one in the prologue – transpired on Maggie and Laurent’s front steps 50 years ago and history, as they say, repeats itself during Maggie and Laurent’s magnificent Thanksgiving dinner. Maggie compiles her own list of suspects and, while she investigates her own theories, discovers that nothing’s as it seems in the quiet little village of St-Buvard.

Susan Kiernan-Lewis has taken her love of France, not to mention her life there, and implemented that knowledge into a very appealing murder mystery. The vivid imagery she creates in the details of the countryside, architecture, and local natives are, in my opinion, the strongest elements in this book.

Kiernan-Lewis resides in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and has previously written two other Maggie Newberry books. Toujours Dead can be found at amazon.com, or for more information you can visit the author’s website at www.susanbooks.com.