Having grown up with two rabid genealogists and having benefited from their investigative skills, I'm always on the lookout for crime fiction that uses family history to solve murders. I was not disappointed with Paging the Dead.
Brynn Bonner has created a smart, funny, and relentless investigator in Sophreena McClure, and her business partner, Esme Sabatier, seems to be a good match for her, although the older woman didn't play as big a part in the book as I would've liked. Since she didn't, her skills as a medium were very lightly used, which is a good thing for all of you who do not care for paranormal elements in your mysteries. I can also see the members of the scrapbooking club being featured more prominently in future books, and I look forward to that.
The uninitiated can get a glimpse of real genealogical work throughout the book, as the victim's family history contains some of the clues to the identity of the killer. The only tiny blight on the mystery for me was that I spotted the killer very early on, but there is so much to enjoy while reading the book that it didn't really matter.
Besides the characters, the setting, and the insights into genealogy, I appreciated learning how those heritage scrapbooks are put together, and several of Sophreena's observations of tracing family history in the age of the internet made me smile, like this one: "Though in years to come Facebook is going to be a treasure trove of way too personal info for future genealogists. I hope I'm out of the business by then."
There is so much to like in this first book in the Family History cozy mystery series, and I'm really looking forward to the next book!
Bonnie A. (ladycholla) - 
