Witness in Bishop Hill: A Joan Spencer Mystery

By Sara Hoskinson Frommer

Book Overview

Things have finally calmed down enough for cozy heroine Joan Spencer and her new husband, Lt. Fred Lundquist, to take a long-delayed honeymoon to celebrate their three-month-old nuptials. Of course, it won't be a traditional honeymoon, since they'll have Joan's teenage son Andrew in tow, and the fact that they are using the trip to finally visit Fred's family makes it even more unusual. But Joan is happy; she'll get some time away with her family, and she'll finally get to see the tiny historic Swedish-American community where Fred grew up, Bishop Hill. Unfortunately for Joan, neither her honeymoon nor her trip works out quite as she'd hoped. For starters, Fred's mother is farther down the road to Alzheimer's than they had been led to believe, and dealing with her illness turns out to be a tough test for their new family. The worst is yet to come when Mrs. Lundquist witnesses a brutal murder, but is a little too disoriented to be clear in her description of the killer. Suddenly everyone in the small village is a suspect, and the only person with the key to unlock the mystery is an elderly woman who floats in and out of clarity, often undetected. Joan will have to get close enough to her mother-in-law to figure out what really happened that night, and to protect her and her extended family from a killer who is bound to strike again. Witness in Bishop Hill marks the triumphant return of author Sara Hoskinson Frommer, whose previous Joan Spencer novels have won her a dedicated following.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312302436
• ISBN13: 9780312302436
• Release Date: November 2002
• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Length: 231 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Really good cozy mystery

Loved the characters, loved the setting. A good book to read with a cup of tea and an afternoon free. The Joan Spencer mysteries are well written and for cozies have more depth that some. If you've read some earlier books in this series, you know that Joan and Fred are finally married. They go to Fred's hometown of Bishop Hill to stay with Fred's mother (who has dementia) and dad while his sister and husband go on vacation. Fred's mother goes missing and when they find her she has found a dead body. The killer thinks she saw him and so they end up looking for the killer as well as trying to protect Helga from him. That's all I'm going to tell you. I enjoyed this book very much.

Bishop Hill Native

In addition to being an expertly written whodunnit, I especially enjoyed the geographical description of the small Bishop Hill community and environ. Any native such as myself will easily recognize the dump, steeple building, colony school, the B & B, the Filling Station along with many other sites. The acknowledgements of helpers Lloyd and Donna Anderson, Sheriff Gib Cady and Sharon Wexell were of particular interest to me and shows the local flavor provided as the title aptly tells.

I absolutely loved this book!

Three months after their marriage, Joan Spenser and police lieutenant Fred Lundquist are finally going to visit Fred's parents in Bishop Hill, Illinois. Not a traditional honeymoon perhaps, but after Fred's mother (an Alzheimer's sufferer) witnesses a murder, it goes completely upside down. Though it is obviously a local, Fred's mother cannot remember who the murderer was. What's worse is that the murderer does not like the idea of a living witness, so it is up to Joan and Fred to protect Helga, preferably by finding the murderer.I must say that I absolutely loved this book! The author does an excellent job of capturing Bishop Hill and its Swedish traditions. The characters are wonderfully three-dimensional, and I think that she did a wonderful job of sympathetically portraying a family working with an Alzheimer's sufferer. Plus, the story is gripping and believable, with detectives who are human and quite believable.Am I gushing about this book? You bet! This is a great book, and I highly recommend it to everyone.

A Darn Fine Mystery!

I believe I have read all of Sara Frommer's books and they have never failed to delight me. Witness in Bishop Hill is every bit as good as all the other ones and it gets into some different, and not normally mined material, than might be expected in "cozy mysteries." I am a writer too (author of Safe Sex in the Garden) and a few years ago I was talking to another writer I know, Vicki Leon, author of all the terrific "Uppity Women" books. Vicki was working on a mystery of her own (I think it will be called Nero's Mother, and ought to be out next spring). At any rate we were talking about books and writing and she told me that she had just read as close to perfect a murder mystery as she had ever encountered. Coming from Vicki, that's pretty high praise. It turned out that she was referring to Murder in C Major by Sara Frommer. Vicki was surprised (and impressed!) that I had already read Murder in C Major myself. If you enjoy books that are finely crafted, where there are no excess words, no filler materials, nothing but the best stuff.....and if you've never had the pleasure to read one of Sara Frommer's novels, do yourself a favor and buy one. Her books are sold as cozy mysteries and I suppose they are, but I feel that they are much more than that. I have recommended these books to everyone I know who reads and appreciates good mysteries and they all thought they were great. Frommer's characters are real, you care about them, fear for them, empathize with them. By all means, do read Witness in Bishop Hill. You'll see what I mean.

strong cozy

Married for three months, Oliver, Indiana Detective Lieutenant Fred Lundquist and his second wife Joan, mother of two grown children and director of a senior center, head to his hometown of Bishop Hill so she can meet his parents for the first time. As they travel to Northern Illinois, Fred's mother Helga, suffering from Alzheimer's, strays away from her home right into the homicide of a neighbor's son.Fred, Joan, and her college-age son Andrew are shocked by how poor Helga's short term memory is which includes not knowing where she lives or how ends up in various locales. The culprit begins harassing Helga to starting with threats over the phone. As the hamlet gets ready for Christmas, fearing for her mother-in-law more from a killer who drifts in and out of Helga's memory than Alzheimer's, Joan struggles to identify the culprit before he harms her or anyone else.WITNESS IN BISHOP HILL is a strong Joan entry though her identification of the killer seems somewhat miraculous. The story line contains an engaging blend of elements of an amateur sleuth and to a lesser degree police procedural with Swedish Yuletide trimming to brighten up the fare. However, Sara Hoskinson Frommer's latest cozy belongs to Helga, who is handled with compassion so that Alzheimer's victims and their families (including this reviewer's beloved late mother-in-law know how much Ms. Frommer cares).Harriet Klausner