Old Murders
By Frankie Bailey  

     Lizzie Stuart, the main character in this delightful book, is a bit of an unusual heroine. Not only is Ms. Lizzie a woman of color, she is also a professor in the study of criminal justice at the University of Piedmont State in a lovely southern town of Gallagher, Virginia.

     Early on in the book, Lizzie is training for a half-marathon to be run in honor of her grandmother who raised her. She is also dog sitting for her male friend, John Quinn, a cop in Gallagher. In the course of her everyday life and studies, Lizzie stumbles on a fifty-year-old murder case.

     The case in question involved a young black woman, accused of murdering her female employer and her infant son. The case was tried and the young girl convicted, but there were always questions about the case.

     At the same time there is a young ceramic artist missing from the college, a bitter battle between two local real estate agents, and a well-established and genteel southern family in turmoil. Somehow Lizzie has managed to find herself in the middle of it all.

     It was interesting to read a book which was set in the south and features a highly-educated black woman. The book does not make a big deal of the fact that Lizzie is black or that she is a college professor; it just works its way into the story. I found myself involved with the characters in the book and looking forward to the solving of each part of this mystery from the missing student to the 50-year-old crime.