"Can't Never Tell" by Cathy Pickens: Book Review

"Can't Never Tell" by Cathy Pickens
St. Martin's Minotaur, 244 pp., $24.95
Reviewed by David Marshall James

The long Fourth of July weekend has swung Dacus, S.C., into high celebratory gear, with a carnival, parade, and picnics out the wazoo-- er, kazoo.
Hometown gal Avery Andrews-- burned out by the highjinks of high-stakes corporate defense law in the state capital-- is reveling in the easygoing pleasures of her one-woman practice.
Just look for the mauve Victorian manse on Main Street (last incarnation: funeral parlor): She has offices on the left-hand side, an apartment upstairs, and a stone angel taller than any NBA player out front (that's a story from a previous book).
One of Avery's back-home perks is free time to spend with her niece, Emma, as well as her own parents and three matriarchal great-aunts. Avery and Emma are checking out a cheesy spookhouse at the carnival when they discover a petrified man who would make Eudora Welty proud.
Adrienne Campbell-- the officious drama queen in charge of the Festival Committee, on which Avery also serves-- wants to shut down the fair, but Avery comes to the rescue of the carnies, who hire her to investigate the source and identity of the mummified man.
As if that weren't enough excitement, Avery is attending a picnic with her brother-in-law's professorial cronies, up in the nearby mountains, when one of the wives takes a plunge over a steep waterfall. Turns out she was a popular high-school acquaintance of Avery, although she moved away after graduation. Back in Dacus with Husband No. 2, she has been dilly-dallying with a handsome old flame. Did her hubby (No. 2) give her a little shove over the falls, or was it an accident?
The concerned husband has plenty of other problems, most of them financial, so the insurance on his dearly departed wife would come in handy. He is also being pursued by a crazed sociology professor, which might be a good thing, except that she's more Jen Craig ("before" picture) than Jen Aniston.
In her fifth Avery Andrews mystery, author Cathy Pickens shines brightest when she is dealing with the light-hearted elements of her plot, particularly anything to do with the petrified man. The over-the-falls storyline is more conventional and by-the-book.
There's a not-yet-fully-realized Southern humorist itching to go all out for laughs here, and she has all the appropriate elements in place, including a Mayberry-esque town with a comedy-potential-laden cast of characters: The aforementioned great-aunts, Avery's "save the World" Mom, a motorcycle gang, town oddball Donlee Griggs, a horsey lady sheriff, and Avery's sassy young secretary. Whew! We rest our case.
So, we want the next Avery Andrews mystery to be a just-for-fun affair. For now, we'll content ourselves with the petrified man and the assorted pleasures of small Southern town Fourth of July festivities.
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