Marlene M. Bell’s tidy novel A HUSH AT MIDNIGHT features an array of characters who are easy to like and hate. They also enhance this solidly built mystery with relatable flaws and vulnerabilities that further the plot and heighten the stakes. The page-turner, a quick and pleasurable read, offers nothing new to the genre, but provides an eminently enjoyable journey.
Laura Harris has left her family’s northern California wine-tasting and restaurant business to escape inter-family squabbles. She became a celebrated Los Angeles pastry chef but has since moved to Texas, where she hopes to turn a corner in her life and career. She’s at an emotionally difficult juncture: the very recent death of her mother, a rocky relationship, and worries about her father (who also lives in Texas).
The story begins with Laura’s visit to longtime close friend and mentor Hattie Stenburg, a small Texas town’s wealthy matriarch, whose late husband had run a successful vineyard and did business with restaurants (including that of Laura’s family). Laura has kept up an active letter-writing relationship with Hattie for decades, and regrets that she hasn’t visited her friend sooner.
Hattie’s death—was it her age, as the police believe, or was it murder?—sets off the action, which ratchets up when Laura becomes the prime suspect. Throughout the story, Laura’s regret at not visiting Hattie sooner also drives her motive to seek out the killer.
Bell smoothly packs exposition into lovely and fresh descriptions of the Texas flora and fauna, from the grapevines that portray the Stenburgs’ business to details about the grounds, mansion, and servants that quickly signal their wealth and status, as well as potential motives among suspects.
Descriptions of the setting sometimes underscore the chef’s way of seeing things: “Snowy petals formed huge blooms the size of formal charger plates.” An iconic Texas flower helps set a colorful opening to the story: “Texas bluebonnet spikes in brilliant cobalt shades, fiery orange Indian paintbrush, and Drummond phlox in salmon and variegated pinks splashed the land.” The bluebonnets return in a neat bookend for the resolution, which includes a sweet, unexpected surprise.
The most memorable character is a gold-digger who has latched onto Hattie’s recently widowed father like an overly accessorized leech: “Laura caught the sideways look the woman gave him in reference to fancy meals, and then like lightning, the sharp glance transformed into a fawning gleam and a demure smile for her father.” She’s condescending and presumptuous—and readers will love hating her. Also easy to despise is Laura’s cad of a boyfriend. A sweet, clumsy pastry shop owner and the estate’s poverty-stricken employees are among other characters, as well as a blossoming love interest who becomes Laura’s helpmate in her sleuthing (and encapsulates everything a reader wants in a mystery romance).
Some scenes take too long, including ones that follow a thrilling climactic scene, and at times the reader might get ahead of the protagonist in sussing out clues. But the world of this novel is delightful to live in, as tasty as one of Laura’s mouth-watering delicacies.
Relatable characters and a well-built story keep Marlene M. Bell’s enjoyable A HUSH AT MIDNIGHT moving along at a page-turning clip.
~Anne Welsbacher for IndieReader