The tenth book in Harris' popular cozy mystery series featuring Lawrenceton GA librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden. Roe is currently on leave from the library as she and her (second) husband, mystery writer Robin Crusoe, welcome their new daughter Sophie. Parenthood is a new and overwhelming experience for Roe and Robin, neither of whom expected it to ever happen to them.
When Sophie is two months old, Robin has to leave town to attend Bouchercon, the world mystery writers convention, in Nashville TN, where he is one of the authors nominated to win the prestigious Anthony Award for Best Mystery Novel of the year. Unfortunately just at the same time, Roe feels the first symptoms of a cold. Robin says he will cancel his trip, but Roe decides to hire Virginia Mitchell, to come in each night to look after Sophie while Robin is gone. Virginia came to help for a few weeks right after Sophie's birth and Roe knows she is reliable. Roe's much younger half brother Phillip, who lives with them, will also be there to help out before and after school each day.
All goes well at first, which is a good thing, because Roe's cold rapidly reveals itself to be a very bad case of the flu. But on the third night Roe is awakened from a heavy sleep by Sophie's persistent cries. Once she settles the baby, Roe goes looking for Virginia, only to discover the body of a dead woman sprawled in the back yard. Virginia's car is parked out front, but Virginia herself has vanished.
Things become even more complicated when the dead woman turns out to be Tracy Beal, an obsessed fan who had stalked Robin and attacked Roe. Tracy was supposed to be confined in a mental hospital but managed to escape. Then one of Roe and Robin's neighbors tells the police that he thinks he saw Robin in the back yard that night --- even though Robin can prove that he was in Nashville at the time. Roe decides that she must find out how and why Tracy died and what has happened to Virginia, and whether the two incidents are connected.
This latest book in the longtime series (the first book, Real Murders, was published in 1990) shows just how much Harris has grown as a writer over the intervening 27 years. Roe and the other characters are more fully realized and believable, and the plots are more complex. Harris has ditched the "Real Murders Club," an awkward plot device in the first few books of the series. And I'm glad to see that in Sleep Like A Baby Roe finally "retires" from the library. Not before time; she was never a very believable librarian, and the Lawrenceton Library was never more than a tired collection of outmoded library stereotypes.
The Aurora Teagarden Mysteries are also a popular series of made for TV films that debuted in 2015 on the Hallmark Cable Channel, starring Candace Cameron Bure as Roe.
Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.
Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.
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