Reviews of Witness in Bishop Hill
The prize here is the gently effective interpretation of the Alzheimer's scourge.
-- Kirkus Reviews, Sept. 15, 2002
It's been much too long since the last Joan Spencer mystery
and Sara Hoskinson Frommer has come up with a winner once again.
Joan is a believable amateur sleuth with the ability to think
things through while knowing what should be left up to the
police. Frommer also gives us a delightful visit to a community
grounded in old-world customs. I highly recommend this to all
who love a good traditional mystery.
-- Lelia Taylor, Creatures 'n Crooks Bookshoppe www.cncbooks.com
When Joan and new husband Lt. Fred Lundquist travel to Bishop Hill for a belated honeymoon, the
only witness to murder in the small Swedish-American community is Fred's Alzheimer's-afflicted mother
in Witness in Bishop Hill, Sara Hoskinson Frommer's latest appealing Joan Spencer mystery. Expect
plenty of cosy chills as Joan strives to prevent a vicious killer from striking again.
-- Publishers Weekly, October 14, 2002
The care and handling of Alzheimer's victims is neatly enfolded into this tale, which also gently treats
Swedish Christmas customs, the tender and fraught relationship between Joan's college-age son
Andrew, his new step-father, and herself, and the long memories of small towns. Frommer is a brisk
and clean writer, and she handles the rueful ambivalence of middle age very well indeed.
-- GraceAnne A. DeCandido, Booklist, November 1, 2002, p. 447.
The village and its traditions spring to life from Frommer's crisp prose and her deft interweaving of
serious social issues into the crime-solving elevate the book well above the typical cozy.
-- (MGP) The Drood Review of Mystery, November/December 2002, p. 12.
Family dynamics and a Midwestern sensibility are the hallmarks of Sara Hoskinson Frommer's Joan
Spencer series. So it's no surprise that the author delivers an insightful take on Alzheimer's disease and
domestic issues in the well-plotted Witness in Bishop Hill. . . . Frommer keeps the plot on a
steady course while realistically depicting the devastation of Alzheimer's. A heartbreaking recurring
situation is that Helga, once a wiz in the kitchen, has forgotten how to cook, yet is always saying she
needs to start dinner. Yet never once does Frommer stoop to a maudlin viewpoint in Witness in
Bishop Hill. The author keeps her fifth novel briskly moving while capturing then charm of a small
town.
-- Oline H. Cogdill, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, January 19, 2003.