Book Review: "A Penny for Your Thoughts" by Mindy Starns Clark

A penny well spent

Callie Webber works for the J.O.S.H.U.A. Foundation, checking out charities to make sure they are practicing what they preach. If she finds them to be in good standing, she awards them with a check for their hard work. Her boss is a man named Tom, who Callie knows very little about. As she prepares to take a well earned vacation, Tom asks her to do a favor for an old friend of his and check out his charity. Callie obliges and postpones her trip, only to visit the guy and have him turn up dead minutes after she arrives. As a former PI, it's in her nature to find out who the murderer is and also as a favor to Tom. There are many suspects with many motives making this a challenge for Callie while also testing her relationship with Tom.

I had enjoyed Mindy's SmartChick series so I wanted to go back and read the rest of her books. I had heard really good things about this series, and boy I was not not disappointed. This was a top-notch mystery with a strong, hard to put down storyline. I love Callie's character, she is strong and very resourceful. She's good at noticing the tiny details which is probably why she was a PI. The reader also feels for her as she is a young widow after losing her husband only recently. Tom is a mysterious guy and if I had been in Callie's shoes I would have done some inspecting on him! The idea of the company is very cool, giving to those who deserve it but don't ask for it. I also found it very interesting about what was said about the exploiting of sponsoring children. It is true that most people do not find water irrigation very attractive to spend money on, but they will spend money to help a cute kid, so thus pictures of the kid is reused to attract people. So the people's money goes towards water irrigation but they think it's helping the kid. Is it deceiving for companies to do this, especially if they are Christian based? Why do people feel good if they help a kid, but they think it's wasteful to help an entire community? Very good stuff to think about.
Overall this was an excellent mystery story with twists I didn't see coming and likable characters making this book a great start to the series. I'm hooked.

A Penny for Your Thoughts by Mindy Starns Clark is published by Harvest House (2002)