Miss Julia faces two serious personal crises in Miss Julia Delivers the Goods by Ann B Ross. First, Hazel Marie, the former mistress of Julia’s first husband and the mother of Wesley Lloyd Springer’s illegitimate son, Lloyd, gets really sick. Taking Hazel Marie to the doctor, Miss Julia has to put her friend in the hospital until the young doctor substituting for the regular doctor on vacation finally does a pregnancy test, which comes out positive. But Hazel Marie has just broken up with her longtime gentleman friend, JD Pickens, because he has no desire to get married, so Hazel Marie has decided to stand up for herself and end things with Mr. Pickens and refuses to tell him about her pregnancy. So ashamed of having another illegitimate baby, Hazel Marie tries to find all sorts of schemes to get away from town, so no one will know her sin. And Miss Julia is determined to do everything to keep Hazel Marie and Lloyd in town.
In the midst of this drama, in which only Miss Julia, her husband Ben, and their housekeeper Lillian know about the pregnancy, someone breaks into and ransacks Sam’s house, which he kept for doing his work after getting married. He finds that someone has stolen important files for the project this retired lawyer has been working on. And not only have his interview tapes and copies of legal files been stolen from Sam’s office, but also the original files are missing from the government office. The five cases that have disappeared have one thing in common: the people they concern got arrested, but the charges were dropped for no evident reason. This leads Sam to call in Mr. Pickens, a private investigator, to try to find the criminal who stole these items, but despite Mr. Pickens’s presence in town, he still doesn’t know about the pregnancy and Hazel Marie continues to refuse to have anything to do with him.
So Julia has a lot of stress in her life. She’s trying to help Sam get to the bottom of the crimes. And she also has to deal with Hazel Marie, who keeps starting to pack in order to move completely away but keeps having complications from the pregnancy that sends her to bed rest. And Lloyd is asking questions too. What do they do?
This book is a lot of fun, and I had a good time listening to it. Previous books have seemed unrealistic at times, requiring quite a suspension of disbelief. But this book doesn’t have that problem so much, though Hazel Marie’s desperation to avoid letting anyone know about the baby seems a little extreme. However, this book is delightful, with strong, creative characters who come to life. I feel that I really know Miss Julia, Hazel Marie, Lillian, and Sam and have joined with her in her adventures.
Cynthia Darlow reprises her role as Miss Julia, narrator of this book. She creates believable voices for each of the characters. The book reads in such a fun way that I am sure reading the book visually would be much less enjoyable.
I highly enjoyed Miss Julia Delivers the Goods. I save these books for when I’m in need of a good time because they keep me highly entertained. I loved all aspects of this book and give it five stars!
To purchase this book for yourself, click here on Amazon.
The Miss Julia series sounds like great fun! However, after being burned by Agatha Christie, who had turned against her own creation (Poirot) ; going so far as to spew vitriol about him,
“Why oh Why did I ever create this DETESTABLE, Bombastic little creature?!”
I’m kinda nervous about investing myself in a new author. I’ll see if I can fan any of the Miss Julia books in audio format on Youtube. If so, I’ll give them a listen. But I am treading carefully right now. As the saying goes, “Once bitten, Twice shy.”
The series is very delightful, but you do have to be willing to suspend your disbelief sometimes that someone in today’s world would behave certain ways. I couldn’t do that in Miss Julia’s School of Beauty, but I’ve had no problem with the others so far.
Johanna, just because Christie got tired of Poirot shouldn’t affect your enjoyment of the books. If your concern is related to the quality of het later books, it may help to know that scientists think now that she probably had undiagnosed Alzheimer’s disease, which affected her writing. In fact, it’s from her writing that scientists have come to this conclusion.
Correction; “I’ll see if I can FIND the Miss Julia books. …” Oy! Another site in need of an edit button.