Keeping Time-Stacey McGlynn

Keeping Time
Stacey McGlynn
Crown, Oct 5 2010, $24.00
ISBN: 9780307464408

In Liverpool, septuagenarian Widow Daisy Phillips knows she has had elderly moments, she wishes her concerned son Dennis would stop pushing her into leaving the family home for a retirement assisted living community. At the same time Daisy is undergoing offspring pressure, her BFF is going away for a few months and the new town librarian informs her and other elderly volunteers that their services are no longer needed. When she finds a long lost watch in her home given to her during WWII by a Brooklyn GI, Daisy decides to cross the pond to the States to find him.

In the United States, Daisy's American relatives have issues too. Her second cousin Elisabeth loathes her job and fears her dart playing spouse the attorney is the notorious "Dart Man," who rides a bike while shooting women in their backsides with darts. Parents of five children; their teenage son Michael overwhelms her with his raging hormonal torment and failing grades. Daisy’s arrival at their Long Island home seems to calm down Michael and gives Elisabeth an escape as she teams up with her English relative in search of the solider.

When the enjoyable story line uses third person grammar it is distracting, however the fully developed cast especially the two female amateur sleuths provide insightful gripping first person dialogue more often. Fans will enjoy harried Elisabeth who feels her world imploding die to her belief her husband has been firing darts are female butts and her son’s anguish while also wondering what her other fearsome foursome is up to. However, this is mostly Daisy’s American adventure even with a coincident over the top of the BQE.

Harriet Klausner