Murder Most Grave

At the start of McKevett’s sweet fourth Granny Reid mystery set in the late 1980s (after 2021’s Murder at Mabel’s Motel), the six girls out of the eight “grandangels” Stella Reid is raising all rush into Stella’s house in McGill, Ga., with the news that their brother Waycross, who’s “fond of mischief and resourceful at creating it,” has run away from school in the direction of the graveyard. When Waycross later confides that he was talking with his late grandfather in the cemetery, Stella knows that the boy is just feeling the need for an adult male presence. The next day, however, after a gravedigger discovers a man “plumb massacreed” on the steps of the crypt, Waycross becomes a crucial witness in the search for a killer. The victim, a local man with a history of petty crime and more recently substance abuse, had no shortage of enemies. McKevett does a good job capturing rural Georgia speech, but Stella’s repetitious doting on her grandangels, as well as her attentions to her best friend, Elsie Dingle, and Sheriff Manny Gilford, slow the pace. Established fans will best appreciate this one. Agent: Richard Curtis, Richard Curtis Assoc. (June)