Murder Shoots the Bull, by Anne George

Murder Shoots the Bull (even after reading the book, I don't know what the title means) is part of the "Southern Sisters Mystery" series, which I had not previously heard of. It features sisters Mary Alice (a wealthy woman as a result of being widowed three times) and Patricia Anne (a happily married semi-retired teacher). They might best be described as lovable Southern busy-bodies. While they do some sleuthing, the mystery of who killed Patricia's next door neighbor's first wife seems less the point than milking the sisters' idiosyncracies for laughs. In addition, author Anne George (who died in 2001) pays a lot of attention to what and where narrator Patricia eats. We hear about various restaurant, carry-out, and home-cooked meals. With this much attention to food, I'm surprised she didn't go the whole nine yards and make the series culinary mysteries. An okay book to read on an airplane (which is where I read most of it), but not compelling enough to send me out looking for the other seven books in the series.

Favorite passage:

We are not nice people. So what.