Shakespeare's Landlord, by Charlaine Harris, 1996, A Dell Book, 245 pages, paperback
Charlaine Harris is a Southerner, and proud of it. Before Sookie Stackhouse, Ms. Harris had amassed a significant bibliography of non-supernatural characters. This series, with Lily Bard as protagonist, takes place in Shakespeare, Arkansas. No tea and crumpets here.
Lily Bard cleans houses for a living. She is also a green belt in a martial art, which she practices frequently. Something very bad happened to Lily a few years ago, when she lived in Memphis. Knowing she is strong and capable is very important to Lily. While she could not prevent what happened to her then, she is no victim now.
I was aware of this series, but had no interest in house cleaning. However, after reading other books by Ms. Harris I picked this up, and was enthralled. People have very few secrets from someone who cleans up after them. Lily has learned more than she ever wanted to know about people on her regular schedule and others around town, regardless of how she is regarded.
I was a National Merit Scholar, I reminded myself, dragging the plastic wash basket behind me as I worked my way across the room, tossing in soiled clothes as I went. I was top of my high school class. I finished college. My grade point average was 3.9.
On Tuesdays, that was my mantra.
Lily owns her own small house, which she purchased from Pardon Albee, the landlord of the title. Albee also owned a block of apartments which Lily cleaned for some of the tenants.
As a result of Lily's assault she sometimes has trouble sleeping and walks around town to quiet her mind. On one such night, she saw someone load something heavy onto her garbage can cart and dump it in a local park. Lily investigated, and found Pardon Albee's corpse.
Albee liked to know things, damaging secrets about other people. Lily knew this, and tried to avoid him as much as possible. She also knew this facet of his personality would make for a hefty list of suspects. Further, she knew Albee did not know her secret as he would not have been able to resist taunting her with it.
Because of concern for her own safety, and not knowing just how competent the local force is, Lily decides to investigate the murder herself. Lily is sure the murderer is a tenant of the apartment building Albee owned and lived in himself, and soon found she learning even more about the personalities there.
These include elderly Marie Hofstettler; Deedra Dean, town trollop ; Alvah and T.L. York, nice retired couple; Marcus Jefferson; Tom and Jenny O'Hagen; and of course, there's a church involved with a allegedly reformed alcoholic janitor and a minister too sincere to be believed.
Marshall Sedaka, who owns the dojo Lily trains at, is an important character for Lily's evolution. His estranged wife, Thea, has her own secrets to keep. These side characters flesh out the story as does Police Chief Claude Friedrich and Lily's other clients.
I first read this many years ago, and had forgotten who the murderer turned out to be. As I was reading, I didn't remember before the end because of the skill of Ms. Harris in telling compassionate story within hard edges. There are four more books in the series, each providing more detail and backgound about Lily Bard and Shakespeare, Arkansas.