Dear Great Book Guru Tonight is the Ice Cream Social that the Sea Cliff Civic Association hosts on the last day of school. Matthew and Lorraine Garry, Deidre Mannix, Julie Gordon, and Laura Parker always do such a great job. My children and I love this event and I especially love that it is held in Spooky Park. There is something mysterious and magical about that park. Talking about mysterious…. I am a great lover of mysteries and am always looking for a new series to throw myself into. Do you have anything to recommend? Mystery Maven

Dear Mystery Maven, I too love a good mystery and just this weekend I discovered a new series- well, new to me -but the author Hazel Holt has written nineteen books over the last twenty five years, always with Shelia Malory as her heroine. I read GONE AWAY (first of the nineteen)) and then THE CRUELLEST MONTH. I so loved both that I plan on reading the entire series. Shelia Malory is a fiftyish widow living in a small town outside of London. She has a strong academic bent so the books contain many literary references; the title CRUELLEST MONTH refers to T.S. Eliot's "April is the cruelest month." Malory visits the Oxford home of old friends and spends part of each beautiful spring day in the Bodleian Library where a particularly unpleasant researcher has been found dead under a pile of ancient books. Was this an accident or was it murder? Old diaries, World War II crimes, forged coins and much more come into play before the mystery is solved. Of course, the beauty of these novels lies in their character and set development with the resolution almost an afterthought. Very enjoyable!