Aggie Sloan-Wilcox is a minister’s wife living in a small Ohio town and trying to stay on the right side of the church congregation’s gossip.  As Christmas approaches, she’s awaiting the arrival of her unconventional mother Junie and two sisters, Sid and Vel.  But she’s dismayed to learn that Junie’s promised big surprise for the family reunion turns out to be the presence of Ginger Newton, the sisters’ former foster sibling whose manipulative, lying behaviors plagued their childhood.  Ginger, currently a TV chef and author of a bestselling cooking book, has arrived with adoring husband in tow, but that doesn’t stop her from flirting inappropriately with Sid’s new boyfriend.   

At a holiday open house, many of the guests witness Sid lose her temper and push Ginger facedown into the punchbowl.  So when Ginger is murdered on Christmas Eve, Sid is immediately fingered as the prime suspect.  Despite the warning of handsome police detective Kirk Roussos, who saved her life the last time she insisted on getting involved with a murder case, Aggie puts on her sleuth hat, determined to clear her sister’s name.  As she interviews people who worked with Ginger, she learns that her former foster sister had not been entirely forthcoming with the truth about her financial and professional circumstances, and that there are quite a few other individuals besides Sid who were targets of Ginger’s scheming malice.  But which one of them was mad and irrational enough to kill her?  

The hook of this series is Aggie’s role as a minister’s wife, but in this installment, unlike her debut appearance, our heroine has few significant interactions with the members of husband Ed’s congregation.  The focus instead is on Aggie’s family.  Richards’ own experience in family counseling helps enrich the dynamics of the relationships, which feel more genuine and less clichéd this time around.  The Sloan sisters had a very unconventional upbringing, and they each have different fathers, but they are a close and supportive group.  Although Junie’s continued eccentric behavior is the source of some anxiety, the siblings are not shy about admitting that they love her as well.  And judging from the conclusion of the novel, we may be seeing much more of the Sloan family in the future.  The Wilcoxes are also an engaging bunch.  Aggie’s daughters – budding adolescent Deena and precociously rational Teddy – are coming into sharper focus as the series evolves.  I still wish husband Ed were more well developed as a character; perhaps a future novel will feature him in a prominent role that allows him to do more than caution Aggie to be careful in a supportive sort of manner.   

Richards also does an impressive job of creating a three-dimensional portrait of a murder victim who is killed within the book’s first hundred pages.  Ginger’s behavior at the open house is so outrageously passive aggressive that you want to slap her, but given her difficult childhood with a neglectful, alcoholic mother there’s just a touch of pity as well.   

There are quite a few humorous moments in the novel (I loved Aggie’s bemused reaction to techno music), but there’s a poignant side as well, as the truth about Ginger’s life is revealed.  Aggie’s sleuthing is methodical and logical, and while the identity of the murderer is not entirely surprising, the motive for the crime is complex and less predictable.  I can’t believe that the police wouldn’t be several steps ahead of Aggie in solving the crime, but I guess that’s the leap of faith you have to take if you read cozy mystery novels.   

The next “Ministry is Murder” novel is already in the works.  Given the considerable improvement of Let There Be Suspects over Blessed is the Busybody, I think I’ll stick around for a while to see if the series can maintain its positive momentum.   

--Susan Scribner